The Price Tag on Becoming

There’s a cost to becoming who you’re becoming.

And sometimes we're caught off guard without having prepared for that part.

Not the glow-up.

Not the change in capacity.

Not the rearranged approach to thinking, and to life.

I'm talking about the Cost. The Price. Le Prix.

Sometimes the cost is people who loved an earlier version of you — but don’t know how to meet you where you are now.

Sometimes it’s comfort, familiarity.

Sometimes it’s the version of yourself that was conditioned for surviving, but not necessarily thriving.

I'm learning now that growth doesn’t just add things.

It selectively removes them.

It happens every time you make a decision about who you want to be.

It asks you to choose yourself in rooms where that choice feels inconvenient.

It asks you to sit with discomfort instead of managing everyone else's ease.

It asks you to bring your full self to hard conversations, even if that fullness includes a trembling voice or a teary eye.

It asks you to give the truth — even if it's at the cost of altering the dynamic of your relationships.

I realize this most when people react to me like I've changed—when all I've done is stop filtering the truth.

One day—mid-conversation—it hit me: this is more than conflict or discomfort. It's the cost of becoming.

I used to think becoming was about doing more.

Achieving more.

Holding more.

Always reaching for more.

And it is, maybe, in a way, but now I know it’s also about letting go.

Letting go of thoughts and narratives that no longer fit.

Letting go of versions of myself built for environments that required shrinking.

Letting go of this idea that evolution should be painless when it's not. It's not.

This season has taught me that clarity can be quiet.

That alignment doesn’t always feel easy.

And that staying true to yourself doesn’t make you selfish — it makes you brave.

I’m still becoming.

Still learning.

Forever refining.

But I'm no longer ignoring the price tag on becoming who I want to be.

I count it.

I respect it.

And I decide — intentionally — that it’s worth paying.

And for anyone reading this (who is in a similar season) just know that becoming was never meant to be free.

-Jah <3