things look different from down here
I don't think I was a bad person.
But I was judgmental.
More than I realized at the time.
I could look at someone else's life and think I knew exactly what they should've done differently.
I was vain.
I could be selfish and make it sound reasonable.
I have to look out for myself.
At the end of the day, I'm the only person I've got.
And for a while, that philosophy worked for me.
It's easy to believe you have life figured out when life is going your way.
You stand at the top of the mountain and look down at everyone struggling to climb it,
wondering why they're making it so difficult.
Then life has a funny way of changing your view.
One day you're doing well.
And then you're not.
Things happen you didn't account for.
You lose things you thought you needed.
You have to let go of things you built parts of yourself around.
And suddenly,
some of the things you once thought mattered so much feel embarrassingly small.
Even stranger,
you start understanding people you used to judge.
Not because someone finally explained it well enough.
Because now you know what it feels like.
I think that's been one of the more uncomfortable parts of being humbled.
Realizing how much empathy I developed only after life made certain things personal.
But maybe that's only part of it.
Because life didn't just change how I see other people.
It changed what I value.
Things I once held onto so tightly don't have the same grip on me anymore.
Things I thought I couldn't live without,
apparently I could.
And things I barely thought about became the things I was most grateful to still have.
Peace.
People who stayed.
A place to come home to.
Another ordinary day where nothing terrible happened.
I think there was a version of me who would've found this life too small.
Maybe even boring.
She wanted more.
More to have. More to show. More proof that she was doing well.
I understand her.
She hadn't lost enough yet to know that having everything isn't the same thing as having what matters.
And I don't resent life for teaching me that anymore.
There are lessons I wish I could've learned without having to live them.
But I probably wouldn't have.
Maybe being humbled isn't only about being brought down.
Maybe sometimes you have to come down from the mountain
to realize the view wasn't everything.