The Moment Before I Burst

There are days when I can feel something pulsing under my ribs — a second heartbeat, a pressure that doesn’t belong to the old version of me. It isn’t rage in the dramatic sense. I’m not slamming doors or throwing anything. It’s quieter than that, stranger than that. It’s the feeling of being so full of emotion, memory, grief, and awakening that my body could split open like a cartoon character and scatter into a thousand pieces… only to reassemble larger than life.

It’s anger, yes.
But not the kind that destroys.
It’s the kind that expands.

For years, I lived inside a smaller outline of myself. I shrank without even noticing it. I missed moments I should have lived. I lost memories I should still be able to hold. I chose — for reasons I’m still unraveling — to stay home instead of being with friends, to silence parts of myself instead of exploring them, to dim gifts I didn’t believe I had permission to use.

I didn’t realize how much of me had gone missing until I started coming back.

And now that I’m awake to it, I’m angry.
Angry at myself for disappearing.
Angry at the dynamics that taught me shrinking was safer.
Angry at the years that feel like blank pages where a life should have been written.

But underneath that anger is something else — something alive, something pushing.

It feels like shedding skin.
Like the seams of my old self can’t hold the pressure of who I’m becoming.
Like expansion is happening whether I feel ready or not.

Sometimes I feel like I’m right on the edge of bursting out of myself. Not breaking down — breaking out. The version of me I was always meant to be is pressing against the inside of my ribs, trying to make space, trying to breathe. She’s not fully formed yet, but she’s undeniable. She glows at the edges. She’s impatient. She’s tired of waiting for permission.

She wants to live.
She wants to shine.
She wants to take up the room she was told to surrender.

And maybe this is what transformation actually feels like — not calm, not graceful, not tidy. Maybe it feels like pressure building, like seams pulling, like anger rising not to destroy but to clear the way. Maybe becoming yourself is less like blooming and more like erupting.

I’m learning to let the eruption happen.
I’m learning to stop shrinking.
I’m learning to stop apologizing for the size of my becoming.

I don’t know exactly who I’m becoming yet.
But I can feel her.
And she’s bigger than the fear.
Bigger than the years.
Bigger than the version of me that stayed small.

She’s coming.
And I’m finally letting her out.

🎧 Listen to the companion song: Break Out of My Skin