On Returning to Myself
There are places I return to
that never changed —
but I did.
For years, I learned how to disappear in service of others.
I gave what I had,
and then what I didn’t,
and then what I should have saved
for myself.
I confused sacrifice with being needed.
I confused silence with strength.
I confused endurance with identity.
And somewhere in that long stretch of being useful,
the man I was meant to be
quietly stepped off to the side,
waiting for me to remember him.
I think I finally have.
Not all at once.
Not in some cinematic moment of clarity.
But slowly — like boots on familiar ground,
a path I forgot I once trusted.
There are pieces of me here
I left behind on purpose.
There are pieces I abandoned without meaning to.
And there are pieces I am meeting again
like old friends who never raised their voices,
but always saved me a place at the table.
I used to think coming back to myself
meant rebuilding the strongest version of me.
Now I see it differently.
Coming back means building the truest version —
the one who rests,
the one who listens,
the one who refuses to vanish just to be valued.
I am learning to return to myself
without apology.
To honor what I feel
without permission.
To breathe like a man who finally understands
that his own happiness is not selfish —
it’s oxygen.
And as I stand here,
on the edge of what comes next,
I can feel it:
I am not returning to who I was.
I am returning to who I was meant to be.