As writers, we are often tasked with capturing the complexities of life, the moments of stillness, the bursts of inspiration, and the deep, often unsettling shifts that come with change. But perhaps the most difficult transformation to capture is the one that happens within ourselves.
Change is a universal experience, but it is also deeply personal. Whether it’s a shift in perspective, a loss of identity, or the quiet shedding of the old to make room for the new, writing offers us a way to reflect, process, and embrace the transformations that shape us.
This week, I’ve been reflecting on the theme of change in my own writing. I wrote a poem called “The Quiet Work of Becoming,” which explores the slow, quiet transformation we undergo throughout our lives. I found that writing about change allowed me to not only understand the shifting landscape of my own journey but also to celebrate the beauty in it.
Through the process of writing, we become more aware of how change, no matter how subtle, has shaped us. Writing gives us the space to look back at the chapters we’ve outgrown, and at the same time, it empowers us to step boldly into the unknown.
When you sit down to write about change, don’t be afraid to dive into the messy, uncomfortable parts. Don’t rush through the discomfort. Embrace it. Because it’s in that very discomfort that growth happens. It’s in the stretching, the breaking, the reshaping, that our most honest work can emerge.
So, to all my fellow writers out there, what transformations are you going through right now? How are you capturing the changes in your own work?
Let’s continue writing through our becoming. Together, we can build something beautiful from the moments that shift us.
“The Quiet Work of Becoming”
There is no ceremony in the shift,
no fanfare to mark the moment
when the soil starts to stir inside of you.
It is not a grand unfolding,
but a small, steady erosion,
as if the earth has always been
waiting beneath the surface
to release something new.
You do not know when the change begins,
a bruise that deepens over time,
a knot worked loose in the night
by your own hands.
The old skin sloughs away
without a sound,
a quiet rebellion
against the life that once fit you.
The ache of it is not dramatic,
it does not scream in neon colors,
but lingers like a forgotten word
on the edge of your tongue.
Some days you wake and realize
you are no longer the same,
but you can’t say when or why
or how you left behind
the version that was.
No one tells you that becoming
does not happen in leaps,
but in a thousand small steps,
each one so small you think
it couldn’t possibly matter,
and yet.
look at the distance.
You are not the person you were yesterday,
and yet, when you look closely,
you can still see the traces
of who you used to be,
woven into the spaces
between what you have learned
and what you are still learning.
It happens in the spaces
no one watches,
the work you do
without audience or applause.
And when you finally look up,
you realize:
you have always been becoming
something else,
not better, not worse,
just different.
Just finally,
you.
With Gratitude
Nikki
Paragonwords 