Welcome! I’ve been trying to help beginners wrap their heads around this game for a while.
Here’s a post I wrote on the forum recently where I introduce some basic concepts on a 13x13 board
Also, I’ve posted a longer 19x19 FOR BEGINNERS series here, and I encourage you to try them out, and see if they help. It’s a lot of reading, but here are links to the first 3
If you enjoy them, I’d be happy to point you to more