You think you picked your favorite song. You think you chose to love the people you love, to want what you want, to become whoever it is you’ve become.

But your tastes were planted in you before you were old enough to consent to them. Your reactions were shaped by mornings you don’t remember. Your parents picked themselves. Your country picked you. Your language was speaking through your mouth before you ever had a thought of your own.

I used to find this terrifying. The idea that I’m not really steering. That what feels like decision is mostly weather moving through me.

Then I noticed something. The exhaustion I carried wasn’t from living. It was from pretending I was the one doing the living. From gripping a wheel that was never actually connected to anything.

You can put your hands down. The current was always going to carry you where it carries you. The strange thing is how much lighter it feels to admit that. How the cage stops being a cage the moment you stop pulling on the bars.