Sorry About That-You Asked For Honesty

Butterfly and me—

We are both still becoming.

She learned to open her wings without asking permission. I’m still learning how to take up space without apologizing for it. She rises easily now, carried by something she trusts. I’m still figuring out how to trust anything that doesn’t ask me to shrink first.

There was a time I made myself smaller. Quieter. Easier to accept. I thought that was how you stayed safe—how you stayed loved. I learned early that being “too much” could cost you things, so I shaped myself into something softer, something manageable. Something that wouldn’t make people uncomfortable.

But somewhere along the way, safety started to feel like a cage.

And love started to feel conditional.

I wasn’t growing—I was adjusting. Folding pieces of myself away just to fit into spaces that were never meant for me. I told myself it was maturity. I told myself it was a strength. But really, it was survival.

The butterfly didn’t survive by shrinking.

She transformed.

And transformation isn’t gentle.

It isn’t always glowing wings and soft light. It’s pressure. It’s darkness. It’s being closed in with yourself long enough to face what you’ve been avoiding. It’s shedding layers that once protected you, even when you’re not sure what will replace them.

There’s something no one tells you about becoming—

It can feel like a loss.

You outgrow people. You outgrow places. You even outgrow versions of yourself that once felt like home. And standing in that space, in between who you were and who you’re becoming, can feel lonely.

Unfamiliar.

Sometimes, even wrong.

But she didn’t stop.

Even when the process looked nothing like the outcome, even when everything in her old world no longer recognized her, she still pushed forward. Not because it was easy, but because staying the same would have cost her more.

I think about that a lot.

How often I chose comfort over growth. How many times have I stayed silent just to keep the peace? How many versions of myself did I bury so that I could belong?

And now I’m learning to unlearn that.

To speak without shrinking.

To exist without apology.

To stop asking for permission to be who I already am.

The butterfly doesn’t ask if she’s allowed to fly.

She just does.

And maybe that’s what becoming really is—

not waiting for the world to accept you, but deciding you don’t need it to.

I’m not fully there yet.

Some days I still hesitate. Some days I still feel that old pull to make myself smaller, to fit, to adjust, to keep things easy. But those days are getting quieter. And the voice telling me to rise is getting louder.

So I follow it.

Not perfectly. Not fearlessly. But honestly.

Butterfly and me—

We are learning that growth isn’t always comfortable, and it isn’t always pretty. Sometimes it looks like breaking. Sometimes it feels like starting over. But every piece you shed makes room for something stronger.

Something truer.

And maybe freedom isn’t something you find.

Maybe it’s something you become.

So I’m choosing it.

Little by little. Day by day.

Not as who I was—

But as who I am finally allowing myself to be.

So I’m choosing it.

Little by little. Day by day.

Not as who I was—

But as who I am finally allowing myself to be.

And this time,

I’m not becoming who the world can accept


I’m becoming someone I’ll never abandon again.