maybe this is what becoming looks like

for a long time, i thought becoming would feel bigger.

i thought there would be a moment.

a finish line.

a version of myself standing somewhere in the distance saying,

there you are. you made it.

i thought becoming looked like certainty.

confidence.

having the right relationship.

the right career.

the right body.

the right answers.

i thought one day i would wake up and finally feel like the woman i was supposed to be.

instead, becoming has looked nothing like i imagined.

it has looked like leaving.

it has looked like grieving.

it has looked like sitting on the bathroom floor wondering how something could hurt this much and still expecting myself to get up the next morning and pack lunches.

it has looked like realizing some people were never going to become who i needed them to be.

it has looked like accepting that neither was i.

because maybe becoming isn't perfection.

maybe becoming isn't arrival.

maybe becoming is shedding.

the expectations.

the performance.

the survival strategies that once protected us but no longer fit.

the belief that our worth lives in what we can tolerate.

the belief that love must be earned.

the belief that being needed is the same thing as being valued.

lately, i have started to wonder if becoming is actually a series of endings.

the ending of old stories.

old identities.

old versions of ourselves that carried us as far as they could.

and maybe the grief we feel isn't because we're lost.

maybe it's because we are outgrowing lives we once fought desperately to keep.

i don't have all the answers.

i am still learning.

still unraveling.

still standing in front of mirrors trying to recognize the woman staring back at me.

but for the first time in a long time, i am no longer trying to return to who i was before.

that woman did her job.

she got me here.

now i get to meet whoever comes next.

and maybe that is what becoming looks like.

not finding yourself.

choosing yourself.

again and again.

until one day you realize you have quietly become the woman you spent years searching for.