On Time With The World

I know I want to transcend,

because safety has started to feel less like peace

and more like a quiet kind of confinement

I stayed inside longer than I needed,

mistaking stillness for rest

and protection for home.

I know I want to go full circle in my life,

to stop living most of the way through things,

to stop pausing before the final breath

and calling that restraint wisdom.

I’ve lived the inside half of my life with intention,

learning myself in silence, shaping meaning inward,

and now I can feel the outside calling—

not loud, not urgent,

just steady, patient, and true.

Before I step out,

I need to break free from this shell I’ve been living in,

and I’m breaking open not because something failed,

but because something finished,

because growth always asks for air.

Shells don’t open clean when they’re done.

They creak and crack, loosening slowly,

stretching under pressure with patience,

making sounds only the one inside can hear.

I’ve been shielding myself from the world for a long time,

protecting what was soft, what was forming,

and now I want out—

not to escape myself,

but to meet what I’ve been seeking all along.

The shell did its job.

I have grown.

Thirty-five years might feel like a long incubation,

but nothing was wasted—

it was preparation, not delay,

a gathering of strength before release.

I stayed inward, avoiding exposure,

afraid of being touched back by the world,

afraid that contact would change me

before I knew who I was.

Now I trust myself enough to send the messages out,

the ones sitting in my throat,

the ones pressing in my chest,

the ones I’ve carried quietly

while pretending silence was enough.

This isn’t a demand.

There’s no rush, no forcing, no race to begin.

I can be patient with myself

and let healing happen the way it knows how.

I give myself grace,

and I give myself gratitude

for arriving at this place—

where I’m handed the keys

to let go of versions of me

that were useful once, but no longer true.

This is a slow opening,

so I choose gentleness over pressure,

kindness over judgment,

letting the shell crack and crumble

in the way it was always meant to.

Inside is life—

the embryo, the egg, the yolk and the white,

everything that needed darkness

before it could carry light.

I don’t want to blind the world with brightness,

I want to reveal it slowly,

not intense, not overwhelming,

just honest, gradual, and real.

I want to be an example of how healing looks—

not dramatic, not perfected,

but lived, embodied, and breathing.

I let realizations pass through me without blame,

I let emotions move instead of harden,

and steadily,

I find my way back into my own lane.

I give myself time to heal,

time to connect with what’s alive inside me,

creating space with every moment,

every breath that reminds me I’m here.

I don’t need to promise anything to the future.

I only need to witness my words as they leave me.

I am not late.

I am emerging.

And I am exactly on time with the world.