Imagine Realizing You’ve Been A Ghost In Your Own Life

I used to joke that I was allergic to myself. Not in the dramatic, movie-scene way. More like… every time I got close to who I really was, something inside me flinched, whispered nope, too bright, too loud, too different and I’d shrink again. Fold myself like a paper bird and hide in someone else’s idea of who I should be. Growing up, being “different” wasn’t poetic. It wasn’t colorful or inspiring. It was confusing. I was the kid who understood things before adults finished saying them, who felt the world in layers while others saw it in straight lines. Not gifted, not broken… just wired with a strange spark. I thought that spark was a problem. Nobody said it directly, but silence gives its own lessons. The raised brows when I asked too many questions. The quiet distance from kids who didn’t know if I was “normal.” The people who loved me but still tried to tuck my edges in so I could fit the version of life that made sense to them. And I tried. I really tried. I studied the way others laughed, prayed I could enjoy the things they enjoyed, trained my mind to walk instead of run. I learned the art of blending. If blending had a trophy shelf, it would have had my name on every plaque. Funny thing is, you can run from yourself and still bump into pieces of you in the strangest places. Like in late-night thoughts that hit harder than sleep ever could. Or in the ache that forms behind your ribs when you watch someone else shine freely and you feel like a ghost watching your own life. Twenty years. Two whole decades of ghost-living. Then one day I walked into a room full of people who had that same spark I had buried. People who didn’t flinch at intensity, who didn’t shrink from curiosity, who didn’t think “different” meant something to fix. They spoke in colors. They thought sideways. They carried fire gently, like they knew what it cost to hide it. And suddenly it hit me, sharp and soft at the same time: I wasn’t strange.I was starving. Starving for belonging.For permission.For a version of myself that wasn’t edited to make others comfortable. That first breath of acceptance felt like oxygen after years underwater. Scary, wild, almost too real. I kept touching the edges of myself like… is this allowed? Is this truly me? I’m still learning, still unfolding, still catching myself tiptoeing out of habit and pulling myself back like “no, stay, we’re doing real life now.” Sometimes I get sad thinking about the years I lost. The younger me who thought shrinking was survival. I wish I could hold their face in my hands and whisper, You don’t have to disappear to be loved. But here’s the thing: I found me, even if it took twenty years and a small lifetime of hiding. And now, I’m not running anymore. Even if I stumble. Even if I second-guess. Even if some days feel like peeling old wallpaper off the walls of my soul. This time, I’m staying. Because I finally realized… life doesn’t get brighter by dimming myself. And I refuse to be a ghost in my own story again.And I think the sweetest part of all this is… I'm not angry at who I used to be. That version of me did the best they could with the love and understanding they had. They survived in rooms that didn’t know how to hold them. Now I’m learning, slowly, to hold myself.To speak without shrinking.To walk into spaces and not fold my brilliance into something bite-sized. I’m not done learning me.Honestly, I hope I never am. Growth shouldn't have a finish line. But this time, I’m growing in the open.With my voice intact.With my light on, not hidden under someone else’s comfort. If you’ve ever felt too strange or too bright for the room, I hope you don’t wait as long as I did to realize this: You were never meant to fit.You were meant to exist as you are.And the right people will see you and say,“Finally. There you are.” I’m here now.And I’m not disappearing again.

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