A Reflection
I have always been someone who listens. Not just to words, but to the spaces between them, to the weight of silence, to the emotions that rise in the echoes. I understand that truth is not singular, that no single person holds the ultimate truth; it shifts and bends through the prism of perspective – we all carry fragments of understanding, shaped by experience, belief, and circumstance.
I personally try my best to not cling to absolutes—I take in what others share, take the fragments, examine them, allow their message to pass through me, and shape my own understanding.
But I also know this: you cannot change another person’s perspective unless they are willing to open their mind. And so, I do not force, I do not push. The only true power I hold is over myself—over my response, my energy, my presence in this world. That’s the key: the only thing I can control is my reaction. What I can do—what I must do—is open my own mind, close my mouth, and listen.
So – I listen. I learn. I respect. I do not have to agree, but I do have to honor the simple truth, that every person is an individual, worthy of being seen and heard.
Yet, I have seen too many lose this ability.
Lose their softness.
Lose their compassion.
Lose the humility to step back from the center of the stage and allow others to shine.
I nearly lost it, too.
For a time, I was not myself. Not because of a forceful breaking, not violence in bruises, but because of something quieter—something more dangerous, something insidious. A silent erosion.
Not a violent firestorm that burns and rages, but a mist that seeps in unnoticed. A subtle, creeping fog that fills the space where clarity once lived. It does not strike all at once—it lingers, curls, thickens. Then one day, you wake up choking on the dense smoke of a backdraft fire, the kind that doesn’t burn with heat but with suffocation that suddenly and intensely explodes with a touch of fresh air.
But I did not let it consume me.
I stepped forward, through the haze, into myself.
I did not just survive the blaze.
I became it.
Because now, I own my soul. It is mine alone. No one else has a claim on it. No one else dictates its worth. No one else holds the key to my being.
I stand in my own light, unshaken.
I breathe deeply, unapologetically.
I am not waiting for permission to exist.
And so I listen. I respect. I learn. But I do not shrink. I do not make myself small to be palatable or pleasing.
I am here. Whole. Undeniably myself. No longer who I was, but now, I Am.
That is enough.
