A river doesn’t ask the rocks to move—
it learns to curve around them.
Lately, I’ve been feeling it again. That quiet shift under the skin. The restlessness that comes when you’re outgrowing who you used to be, but not quite sure who you’re supposed to become next.
Change used to feel like something that happened to me—like a job loss, or a heartbreak, or a sudden goodbye. But now I see it differently. Now, I think change is more like erosion. Slow. Patient. Whispering at the edges of your life until you no longer fit the shape you once lived in.
The trick, I’ve learned, isn’t in resisting change. It’s in deciding what part of yourself is worth preserving while the rest transforms.
Some things must bend. Some things must break. But the core? The core must stay soft enough to feel, and strong enough to keep going.
The Mirror is a Quiet Place
There’s a mirror we carry that no one else sees. It doesn’t show our face—it shows the story behind our eyes. And when you hold that mirror long enough, really look, you start to see the ways you’ve adapted just to survive.
The jobs you took that didn’t fit.
The versions of yourself you became just to be liked.
The silences you maintained to avoid conflict.
But survival isn’t the same as becoming. You can survive for decades without ever truly living. I know—I’ve done it.
Self-Honesty is the First Kind of Courage
Growth begins the moment you stop pretending.
When I finally asked myself what I really wanted—not what I was supposed to want—it was like ripping open a sealed room. Everything rushed out: regrets, old dreams, forgotten parts of me that still had teeth.
Some were too old to feed. Others were just hungry enough to chase again.
I started small. I got rid of clothes that didn’t feel like me anymore. I spent whole afternoons alone, not to be lonely, but to listen. I asked myself, “What if you didn’t have to become anyone? What if you just allowed yourself to unfold?”
There was grief in that. Letting go always carries the scent of mourning. But there was freedom too.
Wabi-Sabi and the Rivers Within Us
Wabi-sabi isn’t about fixing the cracks. It’s about finding beauty in them. And I’ve come to believe the same is true of people.
We are not meant to be polished.
We are meant to be lived in.
You don’t need to become someone new. You need to become someone true.
And that means letting the current of life reshape you. Letting it soften the edges you’ve kept sharp out of fear. Letting it wash away what no longer serves.
We are all rivers, quietly carving our own beds.
We don’t find our path.
We shape it—curve by curve, bend by bend.
And the current doesn’t ask for certainty.
It only asks that we keep moving.
life 
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