How to Keep the Door Closed

First, learn the architecture of safety.

Understand that walls are not cruelty —they are memory. They are the places you learned to survive when no one else knew how to hold you. Run your hands along them. Notice how solid they feel. This is the strength you built alone.

Second, practice independence like a ritual.

Wake up early. Make your own coffee. Pay your own bills. Carry your own weight so well that no one ever questions if you can. Let this become muscle memory. Let it become proof. Tell yourself: I do not need anyone. Believe it — because once, you truly didn’t.

Third, acknowledge the wanting.

It will arrive quietly,sitting on the other side of the door, not knocking — just waiting. It wants to be seen. It wants to be chosen. It wants to share the room you’ve kept pristine. Do not shame it. Wanting does not make you weak. It makes you human.

Fourth, feel the fear fully.

The paralyzing kind. The kind that freezes your hand on the doorknob. The kind that whispers:If I open this, I lose myself. Let the fear speak. It is trying to protect you —even if it no longer knows how.

Fifth, recognize the pattern.

How silence teaches silence. How distance invites distance. How keeping someone out slowly teaches them to stop knocking. Notice how the walls you built for safety can become the very thing that keeps love from reaching you.

Sixth, name the sabotage without punishment.

Say it gently:I am afraid of losing the best thing that has ever found me. Say it honestly:I am afraid that if I let him in,I won’t recognize myself anymore. Understand that self‑protection and self‑sabotage often wear the same face.

Seventh, practice opening the door an inch.

Not everything. Not all at once. Just one truth. One fear. One unguarded sentence.Watch what happens when you are met instead of abandoned. Let evidence replace assumption.

Eighth, redefine safety.

Safety is not isolation. Safety is being able to leave the door unlocked without losing your footing. Safety is knowing you can share space and still remain whole. Safety is choosing connection without surrendering your sovereignty.

And ninth, remind yourself.

You are allowed to keep parts of yourself sacred. You are also allowed to let someone love you there. The door does not have to disappear —it only needs to open when you decide that love is no longer a threat.