I Am Learning to Name Myself

I wish I could tell you I finally figured out who I am.

I wish I could say the mirror doesn’t argue with me anymore, or that the voices around me have stopped carving their versions of me into my skin.

But here I am, still learning, still searching, still trying to separate the truth of my soul from the noise of the world.

People tell me who they think I am.

Soft.

Too kind.

Too emotional.

Too quiet.

Too much of something one day and not enough of anything the next.

And for a long time, I let their words shape me.

I wore their definitions like clothes that never quite fit—pulling at the sleeves, adjusting the collar, pretending comfort where discomfort lived.

I didn’t know who I was without their sentences.

I didn’t know how to exist without their labels.

What if I’m just pieces of what everyone else believes?

What if I’m made out of their expectations, their fears, their assumptions?

If I am who they say I am, then where do I exist in all of this?

There were nights I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering if identity is something you discover or something you build.

Wondering if I even deserved to know myself.

Wondering if trying was enough.

But something changed.

Not suddenly, not dramatically, but quietly—like a small light flickering in a long hallway.

It began with a question:

Why can’t I choose who I am?

Maybe I don’t need permission.

Maybe I don’t need validation.

Maybe identity is not something handed to me like a verdict.

Maybe it’s something I grow, shape, nurture—like a seed I water every day.

Maybe I’m not broken for wanting to be more.

Maybe I’m allowed to become.

I used to think I had to be one thing.

One version.

One identity that never shifted, never cracked, never questioned itself.

But life doesn’t work like that.

People don’t work like that.

Perhaps I am more than one thing.

Perhaps I am allowed to be soft and strong.

Quiet and fierce.

Kind and protective of my own energy.

Maybe I don’t have to shrink myself into their categories.

Maybe I can be everything I was told I couldn’t be, all at the same time.

I’m tired of being who they want.

Tired of bending.

Tired of performing.

Tired of emptying myself into hands that don’t know how to hold me.

So I am taking myself back.

Piece by piece.

Breath by breath.

I’m choosing me over their opinions.

I’m choosing truth over approval.

I’m choosing growth over comfort.

They say I’ve changed.

They whisper like it’s a crime, like transformation is betrayal.

But growth isn’t betrayal.

It’s survival.

It’s self-love.

It’s evolution.

And maybe they don’t have to understand it.

Maybe they never will.

There was a moment—a small, sacred one—when I realized I wasn’t as lost as I thought.

I looked at my mother, the woman who carried me with her own strength, and I asked her how she knew who she was.

She smiled softly, the kind of smile that comes from living, from breaking, from healing.

She told me, “You’ll find yourself the moment you stop looking for yourself in others.”

That sentence stayed with me.

It warmed something inside me.

It reminded me that identity is not an echo—it is a voice.

Mine.

So I started small.

I wrote down the things I loved about myself.

Not the things others praised, but the things I saw.

The gentleness of my heart.

The way I care without being asked.

How I try again even when I’m exhausted.

The dreams I still hold onto, even when they scare me.

I allowed myself to see the good—not just the mistakes, not just the flaws, not just the broken parts people pointed out.

My soul spoke softly:

You are not the worst thing you’ve done.

You are not the names they gave you.

You are the light you keep trying to protect.

I learned that losing yourself doesn’t mean you’re gone.

It means you’re in transition.

It means something inside you is rearranging, preparing you for the next chapter.

And in that chapter, I am choosing to write my own name.

I am choosing to be someone who gives without losing herself.

Someone who loves without abandoning her own heart.

Someone who listens to others without silencing her own voice.

Someone who understands that identity is not a destination—it’s a journey.

One day, maybe I’ll look back and say, “I found myself.”

Maybe I’ll understand every step, every scar, every tear that brought me here.

But for now, I know this:

I am learning.

I am growing.

I am becoming.

I am not who they say I am.

I am not who my past says I am.

I am not who my mistakes say I am.

I am who I decide to be.

And every day, in every breath, I am naming myself again and again.

I am strength.

I am softness.

I am healing.

I am becoming.

And for the first time in a long time—

that is enough.