I used to think redemption meant being good.
Polished. Polite. Palatable.
After the collapse—after the headlines, the handcuffs, the echo chamber of public judgment—I did everything I could to prove I was still worth something.
I said the right things.
I nodded at the right times.
I apologised on loop, even when no one was listening.
I trimmed myself down into something socially acceptable.
Something small.
Something safe.
But here’s the truth no one warns you about:
Goodness can become a prison.
And I was suffocating in mine.
Every time I told my story, I flinched before I spoke—afraid that honesty might make me unlikable.
Every time I showed vulnerability, I calculated whether it would be seen as manipulation.
Every time I cried, I wondered if it looked preformative.
I tried to become a version of myself that didn’t offend anyone, didn’t disturb anyone, didn’t remind anyone of who I used to be.
But that version of me?
It wasn’t alive.
It was a ghost wearing manners.
So one day, I stopped.
I stopped trying to be good.
And I started trying to be real.
Real hurts. Real bleeds.
Real speaks out of turn.
Real makes people uncomfortable.
Real doesn’t smile when it’s dying inside.
Real has scars, contradictions, rage, desire, grief, and grit.
I’m not good.
But I’m here.
I’m trying.
I’m telling the truth, even when it stings.
I will never be the man I was before all this.
But I will never again be the man I pretended to be after it.
There’s something stronger than goodness.
Something braver.
It’s called wholeness.
And that’s what I’m fighting for now.