There’s a strange moment in adulthood when you realize that belonging is no longer something you chase; it’s something you choose. But only after you’ve lived through enough rooms where you were tolerated at best, misunderstood at worst, and miscast somewhere in between.

Some people grew up in families where their existence made sense at a glance. They spoke and were understood. They felt something, and it was believed.

There’s a particular kind of surrender that doesn’t feel like giving up, but it also doesn’t feel like determination. It feels like… floatation. Like a leaf that finally falls into the water.

For years, I carried the belief that I was “too much.” Too intense. Too inquisitive. Too emotional. Too direct.

For a long time, I thought that admitting I had been a victim meant I was weak. Or dramatic. Or “making a big deal out of nothing.”

For most of my life, I thought reacting and responding were the same thing, just two words for “something happened, and now I’m having a feeling about it.”

A story about the quiet ways we’re edited by others—through clothes, food, and shame—and the moment I realized I could reclaim autonomy and stop asking for permission to exist.

This is the moment I realized I had been performing a life I didn’t choose — and how noticing the unraveling became the beginning of self-trust.