A Circle, A Whisper, A Beginning

There was a time when friendships were simple. When the earth beneath my feet was warm and hardbaked, when dust coated my legs as I ran—fast, free, wild. We climbed trees with scraped knees, chased each other along the walls, played football until the sun sank low. There was no difference between us then. No categories, no question of who belonged where.

I arm-wrestled my friends and won. I ran just as fast, climbed just as high. We were a pack, and I was part of it. A brother, a sister—just one of us.

And then, something shifted.

A joke about my name. About how it was a “girl’s name” but I was “more like a boy anyway.” Laughter, easy at first, until it wasn’t. A comment about my shorts, my bare chest, my short hair, the way I played, the way I moved. “Tomboy,” someone said, and suddenly, that was different from just being.

I was expected to wear a top now. To cover what? I thought. I hadn’t changed, but the world’s gaze had.

And in a world that already felt unsafe outside of our games, now even here—within this circle of friendship—something was no longer safe either.

At first, I tried to hold on. To friendships that no longer felt steady beneath my feet. To the easy way we used to laugh, the way we just were together. But something had shifted.

Girls had become something other. Suddenly, there were rules—unspoken but painfully clear. Looks exchanged that meant something I didn’t quite understand. A silent competition that I hadn’t agreed to, but somehow was already losing.

I drifted toward the boys instead. There was less pretense, fewer games I didn’t know the rules to. But even there, the ground wasn’t solid for long. Interests changed, dynamics shifted, and now I wasn’t just one of us—I was the girl among them. No longer belonging there either.

So I stepped back.

If groups could turn so quickly, what safety was there in them?

The quiet became a refuge. I convinced myself I didn’t need anyone. That I was better off alone. That independence was strength, and needing nothing meant no one could hurt me.

And yet—somewhere beneath that self-reliance, beneath the walls I built—I could feel it.

A whisper.

A longing.

I told myself I didn’t need anyone.

It was easier that way.

Safer.

Walls built high, doors locked tight—no one could get close enough to hurt me, to see the places where I longed for something I had convinced myself I didn’t need.

I moved through the world like an island. Fiercely capable. Unshakable. Proud of my solitude.

But loneliness has a way of creeping in through the cracks.

It shows up in the quiet moments. In the empty spaces where laughter used to be. In the ache of watching others lean into friendships, into softness, into something I had walled myself off from.

For years, I ignored it. Independence was my armour, and I wore it well.

But sometimes, in the stillness, something else stirred. A whisper of a time before the walls. A flicker of memory—of warmth, of connection, of being seen.

I turned away from it. Pushed it down. Independence was safer.

And yet… something in me knew.

There were moments when the walls loosened—just for a breath, just for a flicker of time.

Running barefoot along the shore, the salt wind tangling in my hair, a dolphin breaking the surface beside me, joy bursting through my chest. A recognition, a kind of belonging without words.

Swimming under the full moon, the ocean alive with phosphorescence, the water wrapping around me like silk. No expectations, no performances—just me, weightless and free, part of something vast and endless.

In those moments, I belonged.

Not to a person, not to a group, but to the world itself. To the pulse of something ancient, something that had no need to judge or divide.

And yet, when I stepped back onto land, the walls returned. The quiet invisibility among people, the ache of wanting to be seen but never safe enough to be known. Connections felt paper-thin, as if I was moving through the world behind glass.

But those moments stayed with me.

A whisper of something more.

A possibility I wasn’t ready to name, but couldn’t quite forget.

The walls didn’t come down all at once.

At first, it was just a crack—small enough to ignore, easy enough to patch.

But something had shifted.

Maybe it was the exhaustion of carrying everything alone. Maybe it was the quiet hunger for something I couldn’t name. Maybe it was the memory of the ocean, of the moonlight on the waves, of how it felt to belong to something without needing to prove my place—nor define myself by body, colour, age, or shape.

Whatever it was, it led me here.

To a space where people weren’t trying to be anything other than themselves. Where they spoke truths I had buried long ago. Where they dared to be raw, to be seen—not as perfect, not as untouchable, but as whole, even in their breaking.

A circle held with intention. Eyes that saw beyond the limitations of the human shadow to the light and truth of spirit underneath.

I hovered at the edges, unsure.

But no one turned to evaluate me. No one asked me to be different.

Instead, they simply… made space.

And for the first time in years, I wondered—what if I didn’t have to hold everything alone?

What if I, too, could be held?

It wasn’t trust, not yet. But it was something close.

A beginning.

It didn’t happen all at once.

Healing rarely does.

At first, I only watched. A quiet observer, learning the language of trust, of connection. Testing the edges of belonging.

But something in me softened.

Not all at once. But slowly, in the way the ocean carves stone.

In the way a gaze held without judgment can unravel years of guarded silence.

In the way laughter, deep and unforced, can remind a body what safety feels like.

I didn’t have to prove my place.

I didn’t have to define myself by body or shape, by color or age.

I simply was. And that was enough.

And so, I let myself be seen.

Not all at once. But in pieces—first a glance, then a word, then a breath, until one evening, my body remembered something older than fear.

I was barefoot again, the earth firm beneath me. Music pulsed low and steady, and before I could stop myself, I moved.

Not with hesitation. Not with the weight of old stories.

But free.

Unfettered.

Whole.

And for the first time in years, I understood: the journey isn’t about arriving. It’s about remembering.

And in spaces like this—where we commit to presence, to truth, to seeing and being seen—healing doesn’t just happen for one of us. It happens for all of us.

Together.