I’ve met a lot of versions
of myself.
The angry one.
The broken one.
The one who swore
they didn’t care anymore.
The one who drank
to quiet the noise.
The one who chased people
who were already leaving.
The one who sat awake
at three in the morning
wondering how life
ended up feeling this heavy.
Some of them
I barely recognize now.
Some of them
still visit when I’m tired.
But none of them stayed.
Not completely.
Because every version of me
that thought they were finished,
was wrong.
Every version
that believed the pain
would last forever,
was wrong too.
They survived things
they never should’ve had to.
And then they became
someone else.
That’s the strange thing
about living.
You don’t notice
you’re changing.
Not day to day.
Not while you’re in it.
Then one morning
you look back
and realize the person
who carried all that hurt
isn’t the same person
looking through your eyes now.
The scars came with me.
The lessons too.
But the weight—
some of it finally stayed behind.
And maybe that’s enough.
Maybe growth
isn’t becoming someone new.
Maybe it’s realizing
the strongest version of you
was the one
who kept showing up
long enough
to become anyone at all.
Through the Fog 