How I Got Here

How did I get here? I think in contrasts. I gave myself to systems that could not see me and learned the language of paradox: recognition braided with rejection, inspiration threaded through disillusionment, care folded into impossibility. Each tension became a compass.

I remember the teachers who said my ideas were too big for the work, the colleagues who said I “cared too much” as if devotion were a fault. I remember the invitations to innovate, the doors that opened and closed, and the spaces in-between where absence and presence shaped me in equal measure.

I learned that contribution does not ask for reward or recognition. It asks for daring, for courage. I learned that showing up is its own kind of bravery. I learned that resilience is not a shield but a practice, a daily return to intention even when the world resists it. I learned that meaning is found in the quiet spaces between effort and outcome when we bring real presence to the unseen. 

I learned that life doesn’t always hand out neat packages. It hands out contradictions, surprises, and occasional moments of pure delight. And if you can show up even when the world seems to forget you, you discover that you were always enough.

I do not arrive fully anywhere. I arrive again, and again, in each moment of attention, in each act of care, in each choice to remain awake to the complexity of life. That is how I got here. That is how I continue.