Past versions
To the People From My Past Who Only Knew a Version of Me
There are people from my past I never truly knew — and who never truly knew me.
My father helped raise people who never once spoke with me. Not a word. Not a conversation. Just proximity without connection. I saw so much confusion in those spaces. So many people carrying trauma they hadn’t healed from — one person ordering Starbucks, hiding behind a perfectly curated Facebook page, while bleeding in real life.
Then there’s my step sister. She never knew me. She knew a version of me — the one shaped by rumors, by absence, by someone else’s story. But not the woman who lived it.
And that’s been the theme: People from my past have only seen pieces. A chapter, never the whole book. A moment, never the making.
But here’s what they don’t see: The version of me today is not an accident. She is a combination — the girl who was misunderstood and the woman who refused to stay there. The pain and the healing. The silence and the voice I’ve found.
That combination is why I can show up now — present, effective, unashamed. Not in spite of my past, but because I integrated it.
So to those who only knew a version of me: I release you from that story. And I release myself from needing you to understand.
I’m not here to prove who I was. I’m here to live who I’ve become.
With compassion for your journey — and boundaries for mine.
