One thing I’ve been sitting with over the past couple of weeks is the narrative I might hold in someone else’s life. Past relationships. Old friendships. Even certain family dynamics. It feels easier to reflect on the past because my present relationships are thankfully rooted in love, safety, and mutual understanding. Maybe that’s exactly why those people remain in my life. They see me fully. They understand my history, my wounds, my defences, and the moments where I wasn’t my best self. They hold space for both my growth and my humanity. They know that growth isn’t linear and that healing doesn’t erase the past; it integrates it.
And still, in a strangely cosmic and darkly humorous way, I sometimes think about the people who may genuinely believe I am the villain in their story. I imagine the versions of me they hold onto, frozen in time, unchanged by the years I’ve spent unlearning and rebuilding. What I’ve come to understand is that the parts of me they might judge as distant, guarded, or different didn’t emerge to harm anyone. They emerged to protect me. Boundaries can look like cruelty to those who were once accustomed to unlimited access. Self-respect can feel like rejection when someone no longer benefits fromyour self-sacrifice. It would be easy to deny my flaws, but I won’t. They exist. They always have. What matters is why they showed up and what they were responding to.
If you ever find yourself cast as the villain in someone else’s story because you chose to step back, to say no, or to change the terms of how you show up, I hope you remember this. You are not cruel for protecting your peace. You are not cold for choosing safety. People often fill in the blanks with assumptions because it soothes their own discomfort. They rarely know the full weight of what you carried. What matters most is not whether your choices make sense to everyone else, but whether they are honest, intentional, and aligned for you. This isn’t about right or wrong. It’s about perspective. I remain an optimist not because pain didn’t break me open, but because it did. And I refuse to let my fractures become the final chapter of my story. My work now is simple and ongoing. To stay open enough to recognize what is healthy. To notice what is offered with care. To meet the present with clarity instead of fear.
Lately, I’ve also found myself reflecting on who I was as I revisit my past through conversations with new people. Especially when I speak with students, younger adults, or those standing at ages and stages I once occupied. High school. University. Early adulthood. Old relationships and friendships resurface in these moments, not with regret, but with a kind of tenderness. And what I keep realizing, over and over again, is how proud I am of the work I’ve done, both intentionally and quietly, to become kinder.
That doesn’t mean I’m free from judgment or frustration. I still have moments of impatience. I still feel irritation in traffic or flashes of anger when I’m overwhelmed. But it’s different now. Softer. Shorter. Less consuming. In my early twenties, my certainty was armor. Self-righteousness was a way to survive the chaos I didn’t yet know how to name. Knowing everything felt safer than asking questions. Pain made me rigid. Control made me feel steady.
Alongside this reflection, I’ve been relearning what truly makes us happy. Not the kind of happiness we chase or perform, but the kind that exists quietly, often unnoticed. So many of the narratives we create are not only meant to help us survive the people we may eventually become villains to in their stories, but also to help us survive our own expectations. We convince ourselves that contentment, joy, and love are waiting somewhere ahead of us, attached to a person, a milestone, or a version of life we’ve rehearsed over and over. And in that pursuit, we miss what is already offering itself to us in the present.
I’m beginning to see how challenging this is within myself. Relearning happiness requires a constant, gentle questioning of who we are and why we move the way we do. Not as a task to complete or a race to the finish, but as an ongoing awareness. If you find yourself closing your eyes at night and wondering when it will finally be your time, it may not be that life hasn’t arrived yet, but that you’re overlooking it. This is where that familiar cosmic, dark humor returns. Because what we’ve been waiting for is often here, just not in the package we imagined it would come in. And somehow, that realization is both humbling and quietly freeing.
Someone asked me recently if being an empath for so long has ever made me want to stop. I laughed, not because the question was amusing, but because the answer felt impossible. Even if I tried, I don’t think I could turn it off. And if empathy is a strength I’m unwilling to give up, even when it feels heavy, then what’s left is this. To redirect some of that care inward. To offer myself the same patience, softness, and understanding I so freely extend to others. And in doing so, I’m learning that happiness was never something I needed to chase. It was something I needed to notice.
What’s changed is the curiosity. The willingness to wonder instead of assume. I’ve faced more since then, not less, but I no longer need to harden myself against the world to move through it. Growth hasn’t meant eliminating anger or judgment. It’s meant learning not to let them drive. Compassion over certainty. And as I look back on this past month, I realize these themes have quietly shaped so much of my growth. Becoming gentler with others. Becoming more honest with myself. Letting curiosity lead where fear once stood. This has been the work. This has been the reflection. And this, more than anything, feels like becoming. And that, to me, is real work.
