Becoming

We spend so much time trying to arrive.
To be finished.
To finally be the healed, evolved, optimized version of ourselves.

We want to be ready—but what we really mean is: we want to be done.

And underneath that longing is fear.
Fear that if we’re not polished, we won’t be lovable.
Fear that if we’re not certain, we’ll be exposed.
Fear that if we’re not exceptional, we’ll be discarded.

But the truth is: the journey is the work.
There is no final version.
No fixed state of wholeness.
No perfect arrival point that frees us from learning, failing, or beginning again.

Still, we try to outsmart uncertainty.
We strategize, control, orchestrate – trying to force clarity before it’s ready.

But uncertainty isn’t punishment. It’s part of the preparation.
What looks like delay may actually be design.

What feels like stagnation may be spiritual shaping.

And what we often call “stuck” is sometimes just stillness—asking to be honored.

At my 25th class reunion, I saw something that moved this truth from theory into flesh.
People I once knew in adolescent fragments—now parents, artists, professionals, visionaries—were living into their next chapters in their own way, on their own terms.
There was no singular blueprint.
No perfect outcome.
Just evidence that we don’t become all at once. We unfold.

In conversation after conversation, I heard how grief, pivots, failure, faith, and reinvention had shaped people far more than early success ever could.
They weren’t chasing polished versions of themselves.
They were living into aligned ones.
Not always certain. But grounded.
Not always complete. But clear.

In Sisters of the Yam, bell hooks reminds us that healing and self-actualization are not linear, and they are not private. We learn to love ourselves not through perfection but through practice. The real you is formed not in isolation, but through the textures of your real life.

Resmaa Menakem tells us the body keeps score—but it also holds wisdom.
If we rush through pain to get to "okay," we bypass the very materials that could strengthen us.

And so, we return to the moment.
Not to freeze in it, but to feel it.
To mine it. To let it shape us into someone with the capacity to receive what’s next.

The new version of you isn’t waiting at the finish line.
She’s becoming, in motion—right here, in the stretch between who you’ve been and who you’re meant to be.

That in-between space is not a holding cell.
It’s a holy threshold.
The discomfort? It’s not proof you’re lost.
It’s proof that you're evolving.
And that you’re learning to meet life not with certainty—but with readiness.

This is what I saw in my classmates’ faces—readiness in its most radical form.
Not readiness for the next accolade, but for the next version of living.
With grace. With humor. With humility.
The kind that can only be built over time.

Let this be the season where we stop rushing toward answers and begin making space for the becoming.
Because when the next chapter comes—and it will—may we have the spirit to meet it.
Not just with plans, but with wisdom.
Not just with vision, but with tools.
Not just with hustle, but with wholeness.

We’re not behind.
We’re being prepared.
And the version of us that is coming?
She’ll be exactly on time.