"Some days it feels like I misplaced the person I was meant to grow into," I whispered. She met my eyes with a gentleness I didn't know I needed and said, "Maybe you didn't lose her at all. Maybe she's just been hiding beneath all the versions of yourself you thought you had to perform. The girl you were before the expectations, before the pressure-she hasn't disappeared. She's just been waiting for you to look for her." And it stung. Because there's a grief that comes with realizing how long you've dimmed your own light just to survive. how long you've been shrinking, until your own reflection feels foreign. But those parts of you you've been mourning? They're not gone. They're tucked away, patient and quiet, hoping you'll come back for them. Waiting for the moment you stop apologizing for existing, for the moment you allow yourself to grow again-even if it's clumsy, even if it's slow, even if it scares you. Because becoming yourself again is not a race. It's a return.