Part 1: you are not things

you are not your house.
you are not your job title, your income bracket, or your square footage.
you are not the school you went to—or the one you didn’t.
you are not the brand of your shoes, your car, or your grocery list.

you are not your relationship status.
you are not the number of people who invite you to things.
you are not the dinner party version of yourself that’s easy to like and hard to know.

you are not your body size, your skin care routine, or your outfit.
you are not your trauma.
you are not your healing timeline.

you may live in these things.
move through them.
be shaped by them.

but they do not define you.
they cannot hold you.
they are not you.

they are reflections, not roots.
they are context, not character.

because you are not a thing.
and no collection of things—no matter how curated—can explain you.