The Art of Un-Becoming
Paulo Coelho once wrote, “Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you…”
For many of us, especially LGBTQ+ people, “un-becoming” means peeling away the armor we’ve worn for survival — the masks, the guarded conversations, the careful performances that kept us safe but kept us distant. In my own life, that armor helped me get through a small-town childhood, but it also kept me from living fully. Moving to Greensboro changed that. Coming out brought freedom, but it also brought loss — including a best friend I’ve never seen again. This is what I learned about the cost and the reward of un-becoming.