Recently, I experienced a subtle shift in perspective around a situation that had been stirring discomfort within me. What once felt heavy and unresolved softened just enough for me to see myself more clearly. And with that clarity came information I hadn’t been able to access before.

I want to share that with you.

There is a friend in my life whom I care for deeply. She carries a large presence. She knows what she wants, and she asks for it openly, without hesitation. For a while, I found myself creating distance between us. I told myself I was overwhelmed. And while that was true, it wasn’t the whole truth.

Beneath the overwhelm lived something harder to sit with.

I felt anger. I felt unseen. I felt like her requests came without consideration for my inner world, for my capacity in those moments. That was the story I held, anyway. I could have spoken to her about it, but every time I considered it, something felt unfinished. Misaligned. As if I didn’t yet understand what I was really reacting to.

Now I do.

This friendship has been holding lessons for me, quietly and patiently. Her boldness. Her willingness to take up space. Her comfort in asking for what she wants without apology. These are qualities I have not always allowed myself to embody.

And in that contrast, resentment took root.

Not because she was doing something wrong, but because a part of me had learned to be smaller. To hesitate. To negotiate my needs internally before ever giving them a voice. Seeing her move freely through the world touched a grief I hadn’t fully named yet.

That grief was never hers to carry.

I am allowed to take space.

I am allowed to build boundaries that support my nervous system.

I am allowed to want things and to ask for them.

These truths don’t require blame. They don’t ask for guilt. They ask only for honesty.

There is something sacred about the moments when we are willing to look at the parts of ourselves we would rather turn away from. The moments when the darkness reveals not shame, but invitation. A chance to transmute reaction into understanding.

Sometimes alchemy doesn’t come from solitude.

Sometimes it arrives through relationship.

Through friends. Through friction. Through mirrors we didn’t ask for but somehow needed.

And if we stay long enough with what’s being shown, something inside us learns how to soften without shrinking.

May we learn to meet ourselves honestly,

even when the reflection is uncomfortable.

Your sister,

Cy