I need to stop apologizing for my enthusiasms; I need to stop seeing myself as “over the top” when I fall down a rabbit hole of person, place, or thing; I need to stop apologizing for my crushes—t0 myself, to friends, to the crush in question; I need to stop feeling guilty that I enjoy the trip down each particular rabbit hole; I need to stop judging myself by the standards of people who rejected me a lifetime ago; I need to stop making their rejection my fault; I need to stop believing the chorus of “too much too much too much” that rises up every time I don’t hold myself back; I need to stop holding myself back; I need to stop apologizing to myself for being myself; I need to stop thinking I need to put myself in context for other people; I need to stop thinking that if I don’t hold myself back, I will lose people; I need to stop letting that chorus of “too much too much too much” that rises up every time I don’t hold myself back make me feel ashamed;  I need to stop believing that if someone doesn’t understand the depth of what I’m feeling that I am wrong for having that feeling; I need to stop seeing everyone else’s reactions to me through the lens of my own idiosyncratic issues; I need to stop believing idiosyncrasy is a bad thing; I need to stop being scared by the power of my imagination; I need to stop seeing hunger as a burden I place on other people; I need to stop apologizing for my many hungers; I need to stop believing I am safe for other people only at a distance; I need to stop believing I am an IED of need; I need to stop automatically reading censure in other people’s eyes; I need to stop being terrified when I care too much too soon; I need to stop believing my admiration has no value; I need to stop hearing every silence as a rejection; I need to forgive the silences when people just don’t know what to say; I need to stop measuring myself with words like surfeit or excessive or zealous;I need to stop wanting to be less; I need to stop being afraid of myself.