Becoming begins with belonging.

I learn about myself through what surrounds me;

the familiar faces, places, and things that make me feel held, until I begin to wonder where I end and where everything else begins.

We look, and there we are,

sometimes finding ourselves where we never thought to search, learning to accept a different perspective

and to see what remains when the familiar is turned around.

I carry what I cannot undo,

reminding myself that we cannot change what is sour, only what it becomes.

Likely, I don’t always need to look outward

for what will make me whole. Sometimes, I am what I need, even when I cannot find myself beneath the noise, the doubts, and somewhere beneath my thoughts.

Still, I am learning to let the sweetness show—

to make room for tenderness without hiding it.

I’m beginning to understand that I don’t have to stand apart to know who I am.

I can keep finding my own within the shared,

belonging without disappearing.

And maybe I do not need to look far to find myself.

I may appear even in small matters, in passing reflections, in things I might otherwise overlook.

A glimpse can be enough.

A fragment can be enough.

And so I look again.

Into reflections, distortions, and the quiet circles through which I catch pieces of myself.

Anything you see in circles may change depending on where you stand.

Perhaps what becoming really means is simply this:

to keep looking, until I recognize that the self I have been searching for has been here all along.