on the years that felt like nothing.

some years don't feel like growth while you're in them. they feel like standing still. like everyone around you is accumulating things — relationships, achievements, certainty — and you are just existing, getting through weeks, wondering when the momentum is going to arrive.

i had a few of those years. the kind where the most i could say for myself at the end was: i survived it. i stayed. i didn't give up even when giving up felt like the rational choice.

what i know now that i didn't know then is that those years were not nothing. they were the years i was being rebuilt. slowly, underground, the way roots grow — invisibly, without fanfare, without any external evidence that anything is happening.

and then one day something shifts. you wake up and the weight is slightly lighter. you make a decision and it feels like yours. you look in the mirror and recognise yourself. the quiet years made that possible. i don't resent them anymore.