Never Been My Story

I feel stripped bare these days, like my skin’s been peeled off, leaving me raw, exposed to everything I’ve spent years trying to hide. The things that once flowed effortlessly—the way I used to move through the world with a quiet confidence—now feel clumsy, like I’ve forgotten how to be myself. I catch myself hesitating, self-conscious, like I’m seeing myself clearly for the first time. Maybe that’s it—I’ve stopped hiding, not just from everyone else, but from myself.

But there’s something stirring underneath all of that, a sense that this is necessary. That peeling back the layers is part of finding what’s real. I’m realizing now that the story I’ve been aching to tell all these years isn’t just mine. It’s the stories of all the people I’ve met, their lives entwined with mine, their histories bleeding into the fabric of my own. And now, instead of feeling weighed down by it, there’s a strange kind of hope. A sense that maybe, just maybe, by giving their stories voice, I’ll find mine again. Like all this stumbling and awkwardness is leading me somewhere truer, something worth the unraveling.