I’ve learned to love myself,
to face what was broken and turn it into something strong.
Healing hasn’t always been easy,
but it’s given me a respect for my own journey
that no one else can define.

Through this, I’ve realized that I don’t need to change
just because others can’t see who I truly am.
People might not always understand me,
but I know in my heart I’m becoming someone I can be proud of
and I love the person I’m still growing into.

There’s a quiet confidence that comes from being true to myself.
I don’t need to fit the mold,
or hide the parts of me that make me different.
Being myself gives me strength in a world
where so many trade their truth for approval.

Nobody can take away what I’ve built inside
the self-respect, the pride, the love I have for who I am.
This is my foundation.
And I live by this:
“I’d rather be hated for who I am
than loved for who I am not.”

Would I want to live forever?
I have no idea
for the beginning.
For the furious joy of discovery,
the hunger to peel back the universe’s every secret,
to taste, touch, and name each flavor of wonder
as if the world were an orchard that never stopped blossoming.

I would chase knowledge like rain across endless fields,
fill my lungs with languages,
fold centuries of music into the marrow of my bones,
become fluent in every art and ache
to feel the ecstasy of what is possible
stretching wider than my reach.

But is there a point,
a hush after the crescendo,
where the newness curdles into routine?
Does the thrill dilute with every repetition,
each first time replaced by a thousandth?
What is the flavor of a sunrise
when you’ve counted ten million mornings
does the awe become an echo,
or do you learn to love the echo itself?

Perhaps meaning can’t survive in the absence of endings.
Perhaps it is the brevity, the fleetingness
the trembling urgency of the moment
that sculpts joy from raw experience,
that makes one lifetime,
finite and fragile,
so deeply enough.

And yet I long to outlast the ticking clock,
to savor infinity,
to taste every possible shape of being
until the hunger is replaced by a strange stillness,
the pleasure by a quiet ache.
To see if, after everything,
there is a new kind of meaning
in having done it all
or if immortality is simply
the art of learning how to let go
of wanting more.

I’ve been chasing the spark in the taste of the unfamiliar
asking the wind for courage each time I stand on a board,
letting hunger guide me to flavors
my past self would have refused.
Growth, I’m learning, isn’t loud
it’s in small risks:
in letting myself want more,
in saying yes to the unknown,
in reaching for another language,
another home.

France is more than a place
it’s the promise of another self.
A world of beach mornings and briny air,
where volleyball echoes across open sand
and every meal is a prayer
to the simple, the good,
the slow miracle of sharing laughter and bread.

I want to live by the ocean,
to surf into the sun’s slow descent,
to let friendship tangle through every evening,
to eat, move, love
simply and completely.

Every new thing is an awakening:
a proof that I am here,
not just surviving,
but stretching
feeling alive,
discovering happiness in the gentle unfolding
of a life that belongs to me.

Body dysmorphia whispers in the silence,
a critic in my own skin
never satisfied, never letting go,
as if every step toward health
is still a shadow behind some glass

I eat well, I lift, I rest
I do all the right things,
but the mind wants more,
demands more,
insists I’m only one pill,
one injection,
one transformation away
from “enough.”

Sometimes the urge is sudden:
a voice offering shortcuts
Oxandrolone for muscle,
Retatrutide, Ozempic for the razor’s edge,
promising: “just a little,
just until you get there,
then you can stop.”
But I know
that’s the trapdoor
where enough always means less,
where the hunger grows sharper
and the mind grows thinner.

I think of others
how many live like this,
never knowing peace
with their own reflection.
How many get shamed
for bodies they already suffer within?
Social media magnifies the noise,
judgment scrolling endlessly,
never asking what it costs
to wake up and feel
wrong.

I was taught respect
for others, for the journey,
for the infinite variations of a human soul.
Why is it so rare to see that now?
When did we learn to hate ourselves,
to turn away from who we are?
we once were,
born unashamed,
free of measurement?

so I remind myself:
these beliefs are borrowed,
learned,
not true.
I can rewrite the script,
learn to see the reflection
not as an enemy,
but as a story in progress,
a body I carry,
not a burden to escape.

There’s a quiet ache inside me not the sharpness of sorrow,
but a weight gathering in the hollow places
the cost of carrying myself so long, so well
that even silence feels heavy in my hands.

I’ve evolved.
I’ve rebuilt the ground beneath my feet,
crafted a beautiful, disciplined life
honest in its architecture,
but still, every night closes in solitude.

This is not sadness that asks to be comforted,
not grief that breaks me open with sobs.
it's the emptiness that evolution could not erase.

I stand in my own world,
the only witness to the quiet, daily heroism
of showing up, of becoming
wondering why, after everything,
hollowness remains.

I feel it:
a subtle tension behind my ribs,
a hollow ache in my gut,
the slow, tired heaviness in my eyes
the sensation of standing at a distance,
even while present and awake.

Spiritually, I whisper:
I’m proud of my growth,
but I never meant to grow alone.
I’m not sad just tired
of being the only one who knows
how far I’ve come.

This is the invisible cost of self-growth
the soft strength of waiting
without bitterness,
the loneliness of having no one
to witness the transformation.

Still, I carry on..........

Maybe it’s always there, just behind my thoughts
this fear that shadows every step I climb:
What if I finally reach everything I’m working toward
and I’m left standing on the peak,
the world below me,
but no one beside me to see it, to care, to know?

Sometimes I picture my dreams coming true
the sun-drenched days
by the sea I’ve imagined since I was young
and yet, the joy of arrival
feels thin, almost hollow,
if there’s no one to meet my eyes and understand
what it cost,
what it meant to become this version of myself.

All the things I chase success, growth,
the proof that I am more than what was handed to me
lose their shine in the silence.
When I let myself feel it,
I realize: it’s not the goals themselves I long for.
It’s to matter.
It’s to know that who I am stripped of achievements,
titles, armor is seen as valuable,
that my existence is enough.

I know why I ache for this
because in my childhood,
love was never unconditional.
Praise was measured,
worth was earned.
I learned to work, to strive, to outgrow my past,
but the emptiness lingers
when there’s no one to share the view,
no one to tell me:
You mean something. You are not alone.
You are loved for simply being.

Maybe, at the end, it isn’t about the summit at all.
Maybe it’s about finding someone
who will look at me and see the whole journey
the boy who learned to build himself from scratch,
the man who longs to share
not just the trophies,
but the quiet hope of being truly known.

They see me standing now
strong as oak, bright-eyed,
curious with dreams spilling
from my fingertips,
my laughter like sunlight dancing
softly on morning rivers.

They name me confident,
smart, joyous
a painting of effortless grace.
But no one witnesses
the hidden brushstrokes,
the deep shadows beneath.

They weren’t there
when I walked halls of failure,
feeling small beneath towering fears,
when whispers of inadequacy
echoed louder
than any voice of praise.

They did not see me
wandering homeless within myself,
aching for a hearth,
a place warm enough
to shield me
from life’s cold neglect.

Books became my shelter,
pages whispered hope
when silence drowned my dreams;
learning was the only light
strong enough
to outshine despair.

They see joy blooming,
but they don’t see
that happiness grew
from seeds scattered
in barren lands
watered by tears
shed quietly at midnight.

They don’t know
that my wonder now
is gratitude
born from absence,
a love for tiny miracles
discovered in scarcity.

Behind every confident step
is an unseen struggle,
a quiet war waged
within the heart
the fierce battle
to learn love
for the self reflected
in mirrors cracked by doubt.

So look deeper
beneath my laughter
lies strength tempered by sorrow,
wisdom forged by pain.
My joy, radiant and simple,
is a hard-won grace,
a melody crafted gently
from silence.