The love I borrowed

I was raised to be quiet. To keep my voice low, my wants smaller, my softness sealed. I learned early that needing something, especially love, was like setting a trap for yourself. A quiet setup for disappointment and loneliness.

So I stopped needing it. Or at least, I tried. I swallowed softness like it was fire. Let it burn on the way down, told myself I didn’t feel it. I pressed that ache into my mind like a seed, and let it root quietly in my sleep.

But silence has a way of blooming, even in the dark. Even when you think you’ve buried it deep enough, some part of it still grows.

In the parts of myself I kept hidden from everyone, even from me, I started building something. Not a plan, not a future, just a feeling. A world stitched from the soft edges of daydreams, from bits of warmth I found in movies, in books, in music, in the quiet parts of stories where someone is finally held.

In that world, it was the only place that felt like my life actually mattered. Not for what I could do, or how well I could do it. But just for being there.

Smiles reached me without hesitation. Hands found mine without pulling away. Love didn’t show up late or leave early. It stayed. It didn’t knock. It simply entered, as if it had always belonged beside me.

There, I didn’t have to perform strength. I didn’t have to be tough to be safe. I could cry without shame, laugh without control, rest without guilt.

It wasn’t the world I lived in, but it really felt like it was home.

And I know what people say. Fantasy is a delusion; you’re just escaping reality; it’s unhealthy. But those words are often said by people who never had to imagine being loved just to survive the day.

That word I made wasn't fake. It was mine. The only kind of love I had at the time.

I let those imagined moments carry me. They filled the gaps that real life left empty. They didn’t heal everything, but they kept me from falling apart. And sometimes, that’s enough.

They reminded me I wasn’t broken for wanting more. That there was nothing wrong with longing for kindness, for safety, for someone to stay. Now, I live in both places. The real world: loud, messy, unpredictable. And the world I built, quiet, steady and kind.

I’m learning how to let people into my life. Slowly and carefully. I meet people who don’t ask me to shrink, who don’t make me feel like I need to prove my worth. They aren’t perfect. But they’re real. And reality is starting to feel like home, too. Still, I carry my imagined world with me. It taught me more than the real one ever did. It taught me what kind of love I needed, what kind of softness I refused to give up on.

To anyone who lives more in their mind than in their surroundings, I see you. If you’ve built a world that makes you feel safe, don’t feel ashamed of it.

It’s not fake. It’s not childish. It’s proof that your heart kept going even when no one showed up.

Because when the world gives you scraps, your imagination learns how to weave. And that weaving, that hope, that softness, that love you made up just to survive is powerful.

Even borrowed love can teach you how to love yourself when no one else has.

And that, my friend, is valuable.

Nolash Lesly Leon (they/them) writes from the quiet corners of life and work in audio in the film industry. They are the author of the children’s book The Drag Queen Knight.