Versions I Carry

It didn’t hurt any less today.

Every step I took replayed in my head on the drive to donate plasma.

I hate who I was in those moments.

I was caught inside a perception that felt completely true. A reality I couldn’t see beyond. And by the time I realized it was only one lens among many, the damage had already been done.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to escape the shame of that.

Or if I ever really will.

There are versions of me that haven’t existed in over a decade that I still carry shame for. Mistakes I can revisit in perfect detail. Moments I wish I could undo.

It’s hard to let go of the big ones.

Especially when other people became collateral damage.

When someone else got hurt because of the way I saw the world, the way I reacted, or the choices I made from a place I no longer recognize as myself.

That is the part I struggle to forgive.

Not that I was flawed.

Not that I got things wrong.

But that other people paid a price for it.

And sometimes I wonder if that is why shame stays so long.

Because guilt asks us to acknowledge what happened.

Shame asks us to become what happened.

And even after all this time, part of me is still afraid those moments say more about who I am than who I was.