I have recently had several conversations about this, about how much space I take up. Almost all of them take place over text, too, as they often come with a worry that synchronous communication might be too much of a demand. Some of them take place between my partners and I speaking frankly about how we interact with each other. Others take place between other versions of me, characters I role play or those that I write, each expressing their own anxiety.
-Over the years, I have thankfully fallen out of the habit of asking whether or not I am a burden.
+Over the years, I have thankfully fallen out of the habit of asking whether or not I am a burden, of feeling like a burden.
+What I haven’t done is relinquish the feeling that there are bounds around me. There is a barrier that marks the end of me, a sphere of influence that has a point where it stops.
((How much space I take up))