I Am What I Am

I am what I am, and who I am. I was born female, and I still am. My life began on a cold, snowy day just before Christmas—a quiet arrival into a world that had very little to offer. My parents were so poor at the time that they did not even own their own coffee mugs. They owned almost nothing at all, except now… me.

So there I was: a small spark of light in a life that had been dim for far too long. The first sign, perhaps, that something bigger and brighter was on its way.

I grew up slowly, but people around me always seemed to sense something unusual. Even in my earliest steps, I moved with a certain strength—an athletic certainty that didn’t quite match my size. My mouth was often quiet, but when it opened, I asked questions no toddler should understand, questions that made adults pause. The world around me was only just beginning to recover from the shadows of war, and it felt as though I could sense, even then, how fragile and strange life was.

I walked through piles of debris from bombed-out houses and broken buildings. These ruins were my playground. I ran between the skeletal remains of walls and beams, the first child bold enough—or foolish enough—to claim that old, half-cleaned lot as a place to play. It was ugly, yes, but it still stood.

Everything looked grey to me. Even the trees and flowers seemed to grow without color, as if the land itself was still mourning. People dressed mostly in dark tones too, and only once a year—mostly at Christmas—did I see them brighten in sparkles and shades that proved color still existed somewhere.

The world was being rebuilt, brick by brick. Nature was doing the same. The mornings were always muted, dim, heavy with the leftover dust of a world that hadn’t yet healed. Every day I waited at the window for the sun to appear. The sun became my promise of happiness, my personal guardian.

Its warmth showed me the real colors of life: bright skies, patches of blue, the tiny glittering sparkles that danced in the air when the light caught just right.

I don’t just remember those days of darkness and hopelessness—I can still feel them. My parents, though, carried the heavier weight. They never let me down. They worked tirelessly to climb out of the wreckage, even while the horror of the war stayed lodged in their eyes like a shadow they couldn’t quite blink away. Because of that, they tried to protect me more than they could bear, wrapping me in a love that sometimes felt stronger than the walls around us.

I never felt lonely—not with them. Their love made me smile when everything else was still grey. Their hope became my hope. But it took years before I could truly wake up and see the colors of life outside for myself.

Only slowly did the world shift. Only slowly did the colors return.

And only slowly did I understand that even in the darkest beginnings, a life can rise, bright and stubborn, from the coldest winter morning.