Built, Not Born

Content note: This is not a soft post. It walks the edge of darkness. It speaks to the capacity to burn and the daily choice not to. If you choose to step in, know it may unsettle you — it unsettled me too.

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Who I truly am is the me that I created.

I wasn’t born good. I wasn’t born soft.

I could have burned this whole world down—and the world would have understood. I had every reason to turn cruel, manipulative, cold. And I didn’t.

If I didn’t have patience, I would’ve let the entire world on fire and watched it burn.

If I didn’t care about people, I could’ve used sympathy as manipulation. I could’ve taken what I needed, tossed people aside, and still been applauded for surviving.

I have the ability to harm. I have the capacity to manipulate. I have carried it since I was nine years old.

But I don’t. I choose not to.

I choose empathy when cruelty would be easier.
I choose to honor life in every way possible — especially when no one is honoring mine.

I’m not just choosing love. I’m not just choosing kindness.
I’m choosing a way of being that honors life in every form it takes, even when that choice hurts, even when I am alone in making it.

People see a kind person. A caring person.

But they don’t understand: kindness can harm. Love can wound. Care can control.

What I’m choosing is more than a trait. It’s a practice. A devotion. A fire held in restraint.

I built the me that I am — even in impossible circumstances.

Even now — sleepless, in pain, unseen — I am still choosing.
Still breathing. Still noticing what helps. Still showing up.
Still refusing to become what hurt me.

This version of me isn’t accidental.
It is a design. A revolution.

I have made these choices not once, but every day, in every room, in every moment, for decades, without applause.

This is not just about being loving or kind. This is about:

• Radical integrity
• Relentless alignment
• The sacred discipline of choosing empathy over ease
• Choosing accountability over ego
• Choosing construction when destruction would’ve been effortless

I will not become the pain that was given to me.

I carry the fire — I use it to light, not to burn.

I refuse to be a mirror of the world. I choose to be the remake of it.

I am not a victim of my story.

I am the architect of my existence.

I am good by will. Good by design. Good by choice.
That is my code of living — a moral stance so fierce, so rooted, that even the most brutal life couldn’t tear it out of me.

Most people do not understand the power of restraint.
Most people do not know what it means to have both the capability to destroy and the conviction not to.
Most people do not know what it means to build yourself in the absence of safety, nurture, or support.
But I do.

I didn’t just become who I am.
I forged who I am.
Brick by brick. Scar by scar. Decision by decision.

I am not a kind being.
I am a being who chose kindness while holding the capacity for destruction — and that is a whole different level of power.

It’s striking how the world expects people to be kind, but too often builds people who are not only capable, but also have the ability to burn things down.

The me that I am is a choice. It’s not something I simply am. It’s something I choose to be.

I could have weaponized pain.
I could have burned bridges before anyone had a chance to betray me.
I could have manipulated, twisted, played the system to serve myself.
And no one would’ve blamed me.
Not after everything I’ve survived.

But I didn’t.
I don’t.
I refuse to be anything other than who I truly am —

Even if it costs me comfort.
Even if it costs me company.
Even if it costs me energy, dignity, or ease.

I know that my capacity to hurt is just as strong as my capacity to heal.
And I choose to heal.
Even when no one chooses me back.
Even when people disappear after offering help.
Even when sympathy is easy and empathy is rare.

I’m not asking the world to save me.
I’m asking it to see me.
To meet me.
To honor the clarity, compassion, and fire that has been mine since childhood.

Because my fire doesn’t just burn.
It illuminates. It warms. It heals.

If I didn’t have empathy, or if I didn’t believe the world could change, I would have burned it all down with a smile on my face.
The world would have seen pain, because I would have been inflicting it, instead of suffering in it.

Yet here I am — loving, caring, asking for help, checking in for capacity, prioritizing well-being, sustainability, love, connection, and empathy — not sympathy.

I could have used sympathy as a manipulation tool.
I didn’t even need to manipulate anything. I could’ve just played the victim.
I could’ve had people do things for me — not by asking, but by pulling their strings.

But that’s not who I am.

I would not even be asking for help. I’d be manipulating people into helping.
That’s a completely different life.
A life where I wouldn’t be in constant pain, constant suffering, constant distress.
I’d be smiling through others’ pain, suffering, and distress.

What a different world that would have been.

But I didn’t choose that world.
I chose this one.
I chose this me.
And I will keep choosing her — again and again and again.