I am growing, sometimes painfully.
Sometimes out of molds i spent years shaping,
Sometimes, cautiously, into new ones.
I am still wearing all of my truths in layers,
deciding which ones grip my curves best,
and which ones ought instead, to be shed.

In spite of all the weights I chose to carry,
and all the dark holes I almost made home,
I am still climbing.
Towards the freest, lightest version of myself,
I am still growing.

And so should all of us.

In the face of everything and everyone that strives to shrink you,
choose to grow.
Even when it feels like being torn from the inside out,
Even when it breaks your heart,
Even when it means loss, and change, and chaos,
choose, still, to grow.

Even if growing means standing still,
Even if right here, right now feels comfortable,
bask in that comfort, be grateful for the relief it offered you,
but rise with the sun, with the 360,000 new babies
born each day into a new shot at life,
pack up the things you've learned to keep, and go.
In whatever small or large way you can manage,
grow.

Even if it is in ways invisible to others,
even if it is a rate so slow it feels like going backwards,
when the timing is just right, youll know.

Because all of the great big forests on Earth
were formed one patient seed at a time,
because that time is a gift whose value
we often dont understand until it is laid
to rest with us at death,
because life alone is a miracle,
every day you are alive, you should be growing.

Because you owe it to the breath that makes you willing,
to the trees that keep the lungs inside you filling,
to the home the land on which you stand provided,
when youve decided to avoid the pain of living,
and instead, you slow
do so with intent not to let go.
With every ounce of strength you know, just grow.