We don’t just grow up with our own experiences – we grow up inside the stories that surround us. Some are shaped by moments, by things we were never fully part of.
It’s a quiet thing, the way narratives take a hold. Once they settle, they follow – shaping how someone is seen, and how they come to see themselves. To be understood through fragments, rather than as a whole.
To be interpreted, without fully being seen, or known.
Over time, views formed that didn’t come from my own understanding or reflect my circumstances. Being closely paired made that separation harder. Some of it also seemed to connect to differences in how I processed and responded to the world.
At the time, I didn’t yet have the language to understand it.
With time, that understanding has changed. Not in what has been said, but in what I choose to carry. A quieter recognition of what was mine, and what was never mine to keep.
These moments are not about revisiting or correcting what cannot be undone. They are about standing, quietly, in what feels true – and gently naming what it changed.
