I Am Still Becoming

Our parents write the opening chapters. We spend the rest of our lives discovering that we are the author of everything that comes after.

I spent the past couple of days with my family.

Although I talk to my mother on the phone several times each week, I only see my parents a few times a year because they live more than three hours away.

My mother is a remarkably strong and resilient woman. She was 17 when I was born and she went on to graduate from Emory as a registered nurse when I was nine, then became a nurse practitioner when I was 12, and eventually earned her doctorate while raising children and building a career at a time when few women had the opportunities she created for herself. Looking back now, I can appreciate just how much determination that must have taken. I have never questioned whether she loves me. I know she does.

My childhood is not one that I would define as perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but somewhere along the way, I realized one of the most freeing truths I’ve ever discovered:

Never mistake what you were given for what you are destined to become.

For much of my life, I thought I was simply living my story.

Then I realized something surprising.

I wasn’t the one telling it.

My childhood was.

My fears were.

My disappointments were.

Even my successes were often measured against someone else’s expectations.

One day, almost without noticing, I reached over and took back the pen.

Not to rewrite the past.

The past deserves honesty.

But to decide what it would mean.

My parents gave me life.

The next fifty-five years taught me how I wanted to live it.

Every family gives us both gifts and burdens. Treasure the gifts. Learn from the burdens. But never mistake what you were given for what you are destined to become.

I don’t believe my past defines me.

I don’t believe my family defines me.

I don’t believe cancer defines me.

I don’t believe losing my pancreas defines me.

I don’t believe Type 1 Diabetes defines me.

I don’t believe heartbreak defines me.

I don’t believe my successes define me either.

None of those things are my identity.

They are chapters.

Some are beautiful.

Some are painful.

Some I would never choose to relive.

But every one of them has quietly guided me toward becoming the woman I am today.

And perhaps even more importantly, the woman I have not yet become.

I have no idea where my life will lead from here.

That uncertainty doesn’t frighten me anymore.

It excites me.

Because I have come to believe that becoming is one of life’s greatest gifts.

As long as I remain curious enough to keep learning, courageous enough to keep growing, and humble enough to keep changing, then I am still becoming.

I hope that never changes.

I hope there are still places I haven’t seen, ideas I haven’t considered, friendships I haven’t made, books I haven’t read, meals I haven’t tasted, and dreams I haven’t imagined.

I hope life continues to surprise me.

I hope I never become so certain that I stop wondering.

Every morning we wake up with another chance to rewrite the story.

Not by pretending the difficult chapters never happened.

But by deciding what they will mean.

Because in the end, the most important story isn’t the one that happened to us.

It’s the one we choose to tell from here.

And I want mine to be filled with kindness, courage, curiosity, peace, laughter, unexpected adventures, and a joy so deep that even the hardest chapters will have been worth reading.

I am not finished.

I am not who I used to be.

And I am not yet who I will become.

I am still becoming.

And I think that is one of the most beautiful parts of being alive.

With love,

🍯 Honey