Through the Fog

Tag: fear of change

  • 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.

  • Belonging, Measured in Time

    The hardest thing of all is to belong—

    not to a place,

    not to a person,

    but to the moment you’re standing in

    without shrinking yourself to fit it.

    Belonging asks for courage.

    It asks you to stay visible

    when hiding would be easier,

    to plant your feet

    when every instinct tells you

    to keep moving.

    It’s learning how to be here

    without apology.

    The oddest thing of all is time.

    How it slips through your fingers

    even when you’re paying attention.

    How it rushes past the moments

    you’d beg to keep

    and lingers in the ones

    you’re trying to survive.

    Time teaches you too late

    what mattered most.

    It turns now into then

    without asking permission,

    and suddenly you’re holding memories

    instead of people,

    lessons instead of chances.

    Maybe belonging and time

    are tied together—

    maybe we struggle to belong

    because we’re always afraid

    of when.

    When it will change.

    When it will end.

    When it will hurt.

    So we hover at the edges,

    half-in, half-out,

    thinking distance will protect us.

    But all it does

    is make the passing louder.

    The hardest thing of all

    is choosing to belong anyway.

    The oddest thing of all

    is realizing time never waited

    for us to decide.