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Sometimes, I let you in. I open my heart and bring you closer. Yet, as soon as you start to believe I’m “okay” , “normal” or “good”, I pull away.Sometimes, I disappear. I close my heart and push you away. Yet, as soon as you start to believe I’m “not okay”, “not normal” or “not good”, I pull you back in.

At what point in life do you finally accept who you are as a person?That there are parts of you that you can change and parts that you just can’t?That no matter how much you may wish to be a certain way, it’s just not possible?

It’s a lifelong journey.Absentmindedly, I play with the tear stained tissue between my hands, folding and unfolding it over and over again.“Baby, look at me, please.” Silence. won’t you look at me?”I flinch at the sound of the rising frustration in his voice and turn my face away. I can’t bear to meet his eyes, knowing that if I do, I’ll lose all control.

Yesterday, I got some constructive feedback on my writing from a guy who's very successful on the platform. Let's call him Bob. It was the first time that I felt someone was being genuinely honest with me and it really made me think.

I recently came across an article about Megan Markle’s “new found” British accent, and the uproar it’s caused, which inspired me to write about my own experience with losing my accent. After 10 years of living abroad, there’s hardly a trace of an English accent left in the way I speak. So much so, that foreigners who meet me often compliment me on how good my English is, believing that I’m actually from somewhere in Eastern Europe!