What Happened to Me
Running is a great way for me to process.
There aren't many distractions on a treadmill.
There is nowhere to go.
Nothing to look at.
Nothing to do except run.
And think.
Sometimes I think about work.
Sometimes I think about how embarrassingly slow I'm running.
Mostly I think about how much longer I have left.
But every now and then, my mind wanders somewhere worth following.
Yesterday, as I was running, I started thinking about how it's been a year since I started living on my own.
A year.
So much has changed.
I have changed.
I am more at peace than I was a year ago.
Somewhere between mile two and wondering if I could count walking as running, a phrase popped into my head:
"You are not what happens to you."
I immediately argued with it.
Because...
I kind of am.
Not as my identity.
I am not "the girl whose dad died."
I am not "the divorced woman."
I am not "the anxious one."
I am not my betrayals.
But I would be lying if I said those things didn't shape me.
My personality.
My fears.
My compassion.
My empathy.
My sarcasm.
My sense of humor.
All of them have been molded by the things that have happened to me.
The good.
The bad.
And the wonderfully ordinary.
We like to believe we are self-made.
As though we woke up one morning fully formed.
But none of us are.
We are collections of conversations.
Of heartbreaks.
Of victories.
Of people who stayed.
Of people who left.
Of ordinary Tuesdays we barely remember that quietly changed the direction of our lives.
I am made up of the family I was born into.
The friends who found me.
The job that landed in my lap.
The children I get to spend my days with.
Every person who has loved me.
Every person who has hurt me.
Every person I have loved.
Every person I have hurt.
Every circumstance I stumbled into.
Every decision I made on purpose.
Every wrong turn.
Every answered prayer.
They have all, in some way, shaped the person writing these words.
Realizing that changes the way I look at my life.
Suddenly, nothing feels wasted.
Not the beautiful seasons.
Not the painful ones.
They all left something behind.
Compassion.
Wisdom.
Boundaries.
Gratitude.
Perspective.
Strength.
Some seasons gave me joy.
Others gave me lessons.
A few gave me both.
Because my favorite things about my life happened to me.
The people I love happened to me.
The friendships happened to me.
The laughter happened to me.
The adventures happened to me.
The opportunities happened to me.
The hurt happened to me too.
But so did the healing.
The growth.
The love.
The joy.
The courage.
The rising.
It all happened to me.
Maybe the quote is only half true.
I am shaped by what has happened to me.
By every goodbye.
Every friendship.
Every mistake.
Every loss.
Every love.
Every ordinary day that quietly became part of my story.
But who I become because of those things...
That part belongs to me.
My circumstances happened.
My response is still my choice.
And maybe that's the part that matters most.
If this resonated with you, here are a few other essays you might enjoy:
Transformation — Sometimes becoming who we're meant to be hurts more than we'd like.
Fraud — On becoming the person we write about.
The Risk of Being Seen — Why being misunderstood is sometimes the cost of being authentic.
Showing Up — The quiet ways we love people simply by being there.
