Stretch Marks

“You know that feeling? Like I’m growing beyond my own capacity. It feels like stretch marks.”

That’s what I wrote to my friends yesterday. In a chat. Not over coffee or wine on the street – the way we used to, even if only for ten minutes before life called us back. A quick check-in, a quick hug, a wordless signal: I’m here. Priceless. I miss them. But it’s so beautiful to see that despite everything – despite the distance, despite the life decisions that pulled us apart – they’re still there. Any time. For anything. Across any distance.

I am so unspeakably grateful for the people in my life.

But that too is part of it. Part of growing, experiencing, enduring, and trusting. Letting go, going on, trusting that the good will stay. Growth hurts. It’s uncomfortable. The skin stretches. And yet for me, it’s a central part of being alive.

Right now it feels like I’m shooting up into the air, barely able to breathe, entering new atmospheres where the air is unfamiliarly thin. But I know that things can grow up there. That the air will be clearer than ever.

I’m learning so much about myself that it sometimes frightens even me. Learning to the point where the effort is almost unbearable. Through the mirror of relationship. Through an everyday life that wants to be reshaped, again and again. Through the search for what’s mine here, in this new place. Through a professional reinvention that has become unavoidable, pushed forward by all the other changes happening at once. Through reflection, through experience, through sitting with myself.

And that’s when I miss them most. The warm words and arms of my friends. Yes, I’m getting better at holding myself – at self-regulation, at inner stability – and that matters deeply to me, both as a person and for the work I do. But sometimes it’s just beautiful to be allowed to let yourself fall. Without judgment. Humanly. Vulnerably. In a space that feels safe.

Sometimes I wonder: how much growth is even possible?

The same way I sometimes wonder, diving headfirst into the sea on a Sunday morning, how much better it could possibly get.

And then another moment arrives. Another layer. Another situation that challenges me, stretches me, makes me grow again.

And then – the sound of seagulls waking me up. The salt air in the evening. And everything settles, just for a moment.

I keep coming back to something Hesse wrote – that everything alive flows and changes. And maybe stretch marks are just proof of that – proof of life, of change, of growth. Like laugh lines. Like scars. Like all the marks the body keeps of everything it has been through and survived. Nothing to hide. Everything to carry with a certain quiet pride.

Stretching in all directions – that’s what this feels like right now. But I know I’m held. By the people who show up, across any distance, without being asked. And by something in myself – a deep trust, a growing competence to hold my own ground.

Maybe that’s part of it too. Not just growing into something new – but outgrowing things. Letting what no longer fits fall away. Quietly. Without forcing it. And through all of it – learning to listen to yourself. To accompany yourself. To be your own quiet constant.

Even when everything outside is moving.

Especially then.

In love for my friends