Still Becoming
“Won’t you celebrate with me what I have shaped into a kind of life?” — Lucille Clifton
What I Thought Becoming Was
I used to think becoming was something you did early in life.
You chose a path, committed to it, and then spent the rest of your years getting better at what you’d already decided. That works for many.
That hasn’t been my experience.
If anything, the older I get, the more I realize how unfinished I am. Not in a broken way. In a human way.
Living More Than One Life
“Try to learn to let what is simply be.”
— David Whyte
I’ve lived several lives inside one body. I’ve been a corporate leader, a teacher, a partner, a caregiver, a griever, a student again, a mentor, a traveler, a friend, a brother, a son, someone rooted, someone untethered. I’ve made choices that made sense at the time and later wondered what they cost. I’ve followed callings that didn’t come with clarity or guarantees. I’ve stayed. I’ve left. I’ve stayed again.
Some people call that inconsistency. I think of it as listening.
The Pressure to Arrive
“I am large, I contain multitudes.”
— Walt Whitman
There’s a quiet pressure in the world to arrive. To decide who you are and stay there. To smooth the edges. To be certain. But certainty has never been my strength, and I’m no longer sure it’s the goal...for me.
What I know instead is this: becoming doesn’t happen in straight lines. It happens in pauses. In questions that return. In moments when something no longer fits, and you have to loosen your grip before you know what comes next.
From the Middle, Not the End
“Live the questions now.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke
I’ve spent much of the last 15-20 years helping others navigate grief, identity, and change. What I don’t always say out loud is that I’m doing that work alongside them. Not as someone who has arrived, or who knows the destination, but as someone still in it.
Still becoming.
Becoming someone who knows when to hold on and when to let go.
Becoming someone who can live with ambiguity without rushing to resolve it.
Becoming someone who understands that strength doesn’t always look like confidence, as sometimes it looks like staying curious.
Becoming someone who is still figuring out what becoming actually looks like, mostly by stumbling through it in real time.
Remembering Wonder
“Joy is not made to be a crumb.”
— Ross Gay
And I’m realizing something else about becoming, too.
Every time I get too serious about it, too heavy with meaning and responsibility, I think back to my years as a pre-kindergarten teacher. One fall afternoon, while we were studying leaves, I asked the class why they thought leaves changed color.
One hand shot straight up. No hesitation. No overthinking.
The kind of confidence only a five-year-old has.
“To make life more interesting.”
He said it like this was obvious.
I didn’t correct him. I didn’t translate it into science. I just let it land, because it felt truer than anything I could have offered in return.
Letting Change Be Alive
Becoming, I think, asks me to remember that voice.
Not just the wisdom earned through loss or experience, but the kind that comes from wonder. From curiosity. From noticing beauty and change and not immediately needing to justify it. From trusting that some things shift not because they’re broken, but because staying the same would be dull.
If I’m still becoming anything, I hope I’m becoming someone who doesn’t forget that.
Someone who lets curiosity sit alongside grief.
Someone who leaves room for play and surprise.
Someone who remembers that growing doesn’t have to mean growing solemn, and that hope, joy, and curiosity can live alongside it.
Still Becoming
I don’t think becoming ends. I think it asks us, again and again, to pay attention. To notice when we’re growing by choice and when we’re being shaped by loss. To allow both to matter.
So if you’re feeling unsettled.
If you’re between chapters.
If you thought you’d be “done” by now and you’re not.
You’re not late. You’re not failing.
You might just still be becoming. You might still be learning, slowly and imperfectly, how to make life a little more interesting.
Support
I offer spaces of care, connection, and support through (links provided):
🌿 1:1 Grief Support – Individualized mentoring grounded in compassion and presence
🌿 The Kita Center – Year-round programming for suicide loss survivors including a free summer camp for kids, weekend retreats for families and young adults, and our Navigating Grief in the Classroom professional development for schools (and much more).
🌿 Elpis Consulting – Trainings and grief-informed support for schools and communities
I’d be honored to walk beside you.