It’s such a normal question. People ask it like they’re asking for the time. And every time, I pause a little longer than I should. Not because I don’t have an answer. But because I don’t know which one to give.
Do I tell you who I used to be?
The version that tried really hard to make sense to everyone?
Or the one I am now… who doesn’t try as much?
There was a time I made it easy for people. I would explain myself. Properly. Completely. Almost like I owed them clarity. I’d pick the better parts, arrange them nicely, remove the confusing bits. Make myself easier to understand. Easier to accept.
And it worked. People got me. Or at least, they thought they did. But I always walked away from those conversations feeling a little… edited. Like something important didn’t make the cut.
So I tried something else. I stopped filtering as much. Started speaking the way I actually think. A little messy. Sometimes contradictory. Not everything tied up in a clean ending. That didn’t go as planned either.
Because the truth is, most people don’t have the patience for unfinished thoughts. Or complicated people. They like clarity. Conclusions. Labels. Something they can understand quickly and move on from.
That’s when it slowly started making sense. Maybe the problem wasn’t that I was hard to understand. Maybe it was that I was trying to be understood by people who weren’t really listening.
So I stopped trying so hard. Not in a dramatic way. No big moment. No announcement. Just small decisions over time. Saying a little less here.
Holding something back there. Letting silence do some of the work. I didn’t shut people out. I just stopped letting everyone all the way in. There’s a difference.
Now, I pay more attention to who stays. Not who asks questions. Not who shows curiosity. But who stays long enough to sit through the pauses. Who doesn’t rush to define me. Who doesn’t need everything to make sense immediately.
I still talk. I still share stories, thoughts, random pieces of my day. But the deeper parts? Those aren’t handed out just because someone asked nicely.
Because I’ve learned something the slow way. Being known isn’t about how much you reveal. It’s about who actually takes the time to understand what you didn’t say.
So when someone asks me now,
“What's your story?” I don’t feel that same pressure to answer. Not fully, at least.
Because the truth is… you don’t get to know someone deeply just because you’re curious about them. Some things about me aren’t missing from the story. They’re just not for everyone.
And honestly? Most people don’t stay long enough anyway to read this till the end.
And if you managed to read, drop a comment so that I'll know you care.
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