The Doorway I Mistook for a Wall

The Doorway I Mistook for a Wall

Forgiving myself for the judgments I made while trying to survive

I did not know

how often I was sentencing myself

without a trial.

No witness but memory.

No defense but silence.

A lifetime of evidence gathered

from moments that never asked

to be preserved this way.

I called it discernment.

I called it truth.

But often, it was fear

wearing a borrowed voice.

I measured my worth

against versions of myself

that had never been wounded,

never tired,

never asked to carry so much alone.

And when I looked at others,

I thought I was seeing clearly—

their choices, their pauses,

their distance, their noise.

I did not see the rooms

they were surviving inside of.

I did not hear the questions

they were too exhausted to ask aloud.

Judgment arrived quietly.

Not as cruelty—

but as certainty.

As conclusions drawn too early

to protect me from uncertainty.

The unknown frightened me.

So I named it.

I framed it.

I decided what it meant

before it had the chance to speak.

But the truth is—

most lives are lived

between explanations.

Most hearts are doing their best

with maps that were never finished.

When I loosen my grip

on needing to know,

something softens.

Curiosity replaces accusation.

Presence interrupts the verdict.

Compassion steps forward

without needing to be correct.

I am learning this now:

not everything needs my assessment.

Not every moment asks for judgment.

Some things only ask

to be witnessed—

including myself.

And in that pause,

where I stop deciding who I am

and who you are,

the unknown becomes

not a threat,

but a doorway.

— Flower InBloom