Through the Fog

Category: Identity & Becoming

  • Who I Thought I Was

    I’m not who I thought I was,

    and I’m terrified I never will be.

    The image I held of myself—

    steady, certain,

    someone who knew where they were going—

    has slipped through my hands

    like water I couldn’t hold onto.

    I look in the mirror

    and don’t recognize the eyes staring back,

    don’t recognize the heaviness

    or the tired shape of my own hope.

    I keep wondering

    how I drifted so far from the person

    I swore I’d become.

    Was it one small choice?

    A hundred little ones?

    Or the weight I carried

    quietly enough that no one noticed

    how much it changed me?

    I’m not who I thought I was,

    but maybe that’s the truth

    I needed to face—

    that growing hurts,

    that becoming someone new

    often feels like losing

    everything you expected to be.

    And yes, I’m terrified

    I never will be that version of me—

    but there’s a small, trembling part

    that wonders

    if maybe who I’m becoming

    is someone worth meeting, too.

  • What I’d Leave Behind

    I would paint the walls

    with every beautiful thing I am

    and every terrible thing I’ve ever been —

    layered thick,

    no clean lines,

    no apology for the mess.

    Joy smeared beside regret,

    love dripping into shame,

    gold pressed hard

    against the bruised colors

    no one likes to look at too long.

    I wouldn’t fix the edges.

    I wouldn’t soften the truth.

    There would be laughter

    caught mid-breath,

    and grief so old

    it’s learned how to sit quietly.

    There would be nights

    I survived out of spite,

    and mornings

    I stayed for no good reason at all.

    It wouldn’t be pretty.

    It would be mine.

    A room that says:

    this person felt deeply,

    broke often,

    kept going anyway.

    A testament to contradictions —

    light bleeding into dark,

    dark refusing to erase the light.

    If anyone stood there long enough,

    they’d see it wasn’t destruction

    I was trying to leave behind —

    it was proof.

    Proof that I was here.

    That I contained multitudes.

    That even the terrible things

    never managed

    to erase the beautiful ones.