THE SKELETON IN MY HEAD AND THE MAN WITH THE PEN

You know that moment when you drop a sarcastic comment on Facebook and, instead of sparking a fight with a random idiot, you end up finding the love of your life?

Yeah, me neither.

Not until I cracked open my crusty-ass keyboard and casually fired off a passive-aggressive opinion about books.

Books. The fucking irony.

Because me? I was a woman with more emotional scar tissue than well-written paragraphs. A walking anthology of unresolved trauma and questionable coping mechanisms. And somehow, that led me straight into the inbox of a writer. Not some wannabe life coach peddling Instagram wisdom and motivational mugs, but a writer with soul. And brains. And outrns out- the kind of beautiful madness it takes to love someone like me.

I’ve always been a woman with a disability. Physical, sure - metal in my bones, pain like static under my skin - but that wasn’t the real monster. The real beast? Lived upstairs. Chewed holes through my brain like a rat in the walls.

And no - I wasn’t “brave,” or “inspirational,” or whatever condescending bullshit people say to avoid sitting with the weight of someone else’s pain. I was bitter. Sharp-tongued. It is darkly funny in a way that makes people uncomfortable.

And so fucking lonely. Not the Netflix-on-a-Friday-night kind, but the kind that festers in fluorescent-lit rooms full of people, where your thoughts claw at your insides like feral cats.

My disability didn’t steal my body. It stole my belief that I deserved to be seen, let alone loved.

Then he showed up.

Not like a hero in a rom-com. More like a glitch in the matrix. Not because he was perfect - but because he was just unhinged enough to look at all my jagged, rusted pieces and say, “Yeah. I see you. And I’m not fucking running.”

He wrote stories. The kind that cracks your ribcage open like a crowbar and whispers to your heart while you’re scrubbing a frying pan or crying on the toilet. Naturally, I had to ruin it with a snark: “Typical. A writer who romanticizes pain. Do people need to break just to inspire you?”

He didn’t block me. He messaged back: “So… who broke you?”

I didn’t know whether to slap him through the screen or give him my number.

So, I gave him my number. I was already spiralling.

Our first conversation lasted three hours. I tried to play it cool, sipping lukewarm coffee with trembling hands, pretending I didn’t care. “I don’t fall for writers, thanks.” Meanwhile, he just… listened.

God, that man can listen. Like every word I threw out, raw and jagged, he caught it like it was a glass ornament. Like my voice had a beat, and he was the fucking conductor - following it, coaxing it, letting it breathe.

My issues weren’t cute.

They weren’t “I hate my thighs” or “I don’t like my laugh” kind of quirks. They were “I am fundamentally unlovable” kind of monsters. They were “If he cares about me, he must be damaged too” kind of demons.

And every time he looked at me like I was the goddamn Mona Lisa, my brain screamed: He doesn’t see you. He sees the idea of you. The fantasy. The fix-me story arc.

But he didn’t run. He didn’t flinch. He stayed.

I wasn’t easy to love. Hell, I wasn’t even easy to be around. I had days when I couldn’t peel myself out of bed, skin hot with shame and joints stiff with rebellion. Days when just existing felt like dragging a corpse through molasses. Days when I picked fights because the pain felt safer than hope.

And him?

He sat on the edge of my bed, smelling like old coffee and lavender laundry detergent, opened his beat-up laptop, and read me the words he’d written that day. He didn’t ask me to get up. He didn’t say, “Come on, you’ve got this.” He just stayed.

And for someone who’d been taught - over and over - that they weren’t worth that kind of devotion? That’s the most fucking terrifying kindness there is.

He never tried to fix me. He didn’t turn my pain into poetry. He didn’t spin my trauma into character development. He was just real.

He knew when I needed silence. He knew when I needed a dick joke. He even knew when I needed him to - literally - wipe my ass.

And one day, somewhere between morphine sweats and quiet humiliation, I croaked through gritted teeth, “This isn’t what I signed up for.”

And without missing a beat, he kissed my clammy forehead and said, “It’s exactly what I signed up for.”

That’s when it hit me like a freight train: Love isn’t fucking roses and glittery texts and heart emojis. Love is being seen. Fully. Brutally. Beautifully. And being chosen anyway.

We got married quietly. No big crowd. No flower arch. I hated my dress - itchy, too tight in all the wrong places. His suit drooped off his shoulders like a kid playing dress-up.

But when he looked me in the eyes and said “I do,” it landed in my chest like gospel.

We have two daughters. Loud, healthy, wild little storm systems. I never thought I’d be a mother. I was terrified of breaking them with my brokenness. But he held my hand through every scan, every panic attack, every midnight meltdown.

And when I pushed our first girl into the world, screaming and slippery, he looked at me like I was goddamn Superman.

And you know what? I was. Not despite my disability. Because of it. Because it taught me to bleed and laugh at the same time. Because it taught me that love doesn’t want your perfection - it wants your truth. And he, my fucked-up, beautiful writer, taught me that.

Do I still have bad days? Hell yes. Days when the mirror looks back like it’s holding a grudge.

But now I’ve got armour. His words. His warmth. Two little girls who look at me like I lasso the fucking moon. And I can.

Because I’ve learned I don’t have to be indestructible. I just have to show armour has to be real.

You don’t kill your demons.

You tame them.

You sit down.

Have coffee.

Tell them to shut the fuck up and let you breathe.

You laugh. You swear.

You love anyway.

And all of that?

Started with one sarcastic comment on Facebook.