Born Today?

A compliment that lands wrong tells you something the person saying it does not know they are telling you. When someone praises the version of you that requires the least from them, or notices only the part that makes their own life easier, the words carry information about how they see you that has nothing to do with how you see yourself. You hear what they think you are for, and it is smaller than what you know you contain. The gap between their words and your reality becomes a quiet weight you take with you long after the conversation ends. This year asks you to notice how often you adjust yourself to fit compliments that were never meant to hold your actual size, and what it costs to keep shrinking into other people's comfortable versions of who you might be.