Shades of Blue: What Grows Beside Me

People only ever meet the version of us that learned how to keep going. The one that knows when to smile, what to say, how to make grief sound smaller than it really was. They don't meet the versions we had to leave behind to survive. The softer ones. The reckless ones. The ones who trusted too easily, loved too hard, or broke so quietly that nobody noticed because life kept asking us to move forward. But they never really leave. They walk beside us. In the way we flinch at certain memories. In how a song can undo an entire day. In the apologies we offer for taking up space. In the tenderness we still carry despite everything that tried to turn it into something harder. We call them shadows as if they're something to fear. But maybe they're proof. Proof that we've loved enough to grieve. That we've hoped enough to be disappointed. That we've lost things we thought we'd never survive losing and somehow, we're still here. Perhaps healing was never about becoming someone new. Perhaps it was about turning around and recognizing the selves we abandoned in order to be accepted, successful, desirable, strong. The child who needed protecting. The dreamer who believed everything was possible. The person who didn't yet know what heartbreak would cost. The truth is, none of us become ourselves without leaving pieces behind. We are made of every goodbye, every almost, every person we miss, every version of ourselves that carried us to the next season and disappeared before anyone thought to thank them. And still, flowers grow. Still, we laugh. Still, we love. So tell me How much of yourself have you traded away just to become someone easier for the world to hold... and if all the versions of you that never stopped loving, hoping, grieving, and waiting stood beside you now, would you recognize them as burdens to outgrow or as the roots that kept you alive?