The Spiral Staircase of Becoming

Intro:

For a long time, I thought growth was linear. That once I healed something, it would stay healed. That once I learned a lesson, I was done with it. But the last few months have humbled me. Becoming isn’t about moving on-it’s about circling back, again and again, to meet yourself more honestly each time.

This piece is for anyone who’s felt like they’re breaking down when, really, they’re breaking open. If you’re walking your own spiral-shedding skins, questioning truths, grieving identities-you’re not alone. I’m right there with you, and maybe this reflection will remind you: you’re not behind. You’re simply returning. ------- Becoming isn’t a single moment of clarity- it’s a thousand quiet reckonings. It’s a spiral, not a ladder. You think you’ve moved past something only to find yourself staring into it again, just from a higher place, a slightly softened edge. And still, it asks more of you. Becoming is brutal sometimes, not because you’re failing, but because you’re shedding. You peel away layers that once kept you safe. You let go of the stories that cradled your survival but now keep you small. You sit with the discomfort of who you thought you had to be and listen-really listen-to what still feels true underneath all the noise.

These last few months, I’ve walked through the wreckage of my own undoing. I packed up a house that held more memories than love. I untangled myself from a marriage that had long stopped seeing me. I signed divorce papers with trembling hands and a quiet kind of grace. I learned to sleep alone again, to hear my own breath without flinching. I moved, both literally and emotionally-into a space that felt like a blank canvas, not a void.

It wasn’t chaos that changed me. It was choice. Soft, quiet choices. Like digging up my rose garden with my bare hands because I couldn’t bear to leave beauty behind. Like making dinner in silence and learning that loneliness doesn’t always mean empty. Like letting tears fall without explaining them away.

I watched old versions of myself rise-versions that people loved because she was agreeable, nurturing, always reachable. But I no longer wanted to be reachable if it meant abandoning myself. I realized some roles I wore so long they fused to my identity. I was the fixer, the peacekeeper, the bright one who never asked for much. And it was killing me gently.

So I chose to let go.

Not all at once. But layer by layer. I said no when I wanted to. I stopped mothering people who refused to grow. I asked for help without shame. I let friendships drift that only loved me for the light I offered but never stayed for the darkness. I stopped performing strength and started practicing trust.

I’ve learned to stop flinching when I meet an old version of myself. She was doing her best with what she had. She stayed too long, said yes too softly, silenced herself in the name of peace. And still, I honor her. Because she brought me here-to this moment, this breath, this becoming.

And I’ve stopped needing it to be a clean journey. Some days, I still long for the very things I chose to walk away from. The routine. The title. The illusion of safety. But now I know: healing isn’t erasing the past. It’s learning to walk with it and not let it chain you.

I’ve started writing again. Not to prove anything, but to remember who I am beneath the noise. I’ve returned to my body, my breath, my roots. I’ve allowed love to show up in small ways-through friends, through self-touch, through dancing in the kitchen when no one’s watching.

The staircase winds, but I keep rising. Not because I’ve figured it all out-but because I’ve stopped needing to. I’ve learned to hold my own hand when it shakes. To let the silence answer things words never could. To trust the stillness, even when it scares me.

Because maybe the most sacred kind of becoming isn’t loud or triumphant. Maybe it’s this-returning, again and again, to the woman I was always meant to be. Unarmored. Unapologetic. And deeply, deeply home in herself. Are you willing to come home to yourself?