Shrinking to Fit

I know what it is like to make yourself smaller in a room that taught you smaller was safer.

I made myself smaller in rooms that required more of me than I was offering, for years, because the offering felt dangerous and the danger was more familiar than the risk.

Here is what I want you to know: the person you made smaller is still there. They have not been lost. They have been waiting with the particular patience that the most fundamental parts of us tend to have, because they are not going anywhere. They were there before the accommodation and they will be there after.

The next step is not a declaration. It is not a performance of your full self for an audience that has only seen the accommodation.

The next step is smaller than that. It is one sentence you did not say last week, said this week. One preference stated. One boundary held for ten minutes longer than usual.

You grew into the shrinking. You can grow out of it. One centimeter at a time.

— Job