The People I Hurt And The Lessons I Learned
Do we ever know who we are?
I mean, really know who we are?
Enough to say, hey, this is me, this is exactly who I am and I want everyone to see it.
Because I am more than what people think I am. I am more than what I think I am.
I am more than just the things I learned from the people that taught me, from the people I copied or the way I was told to think.
I am more than my values and my thoughts and always more than just my ideas.
I am more than my fears and desires, more than my worries and dreams and nightmares. More than the way that people made me feel, whether they meant to or not, and the decisions that I made and the people that I hurt and the lessons that I learned, or didn't learn, from those experiences. I am more than the weight of all the opportunities that I didn't take or maybe didn't even notice.
Of course they shape me, these random and sometimes chaotic moments, these fragments of a life, and they are me in so many ways.
But I am more than this.
I am the brief and momentary seconds that pass, insignificant yet lasting, that twisted and turned my malleable mind. I am the look she gave me when I asked her out, the words I used on the way home in the rain and the way I felt when I overslept and missed the appointment.
They are all me.
I am the music that made me cry but also made me dance and sing along with delight and joy. And I am the smell of the perfume she chose for that special dinner or the fragrance of soil and vegetation on our walk after the storm.
I am already so much and with luck will become so much more.
But no-one will ever know the real me.
