Coffee Conversations…

”Can I ask you something?”

Do you think life changes us….or does it simply reveal who we’ve been all along?

It’s one of those questions that arrives halfway through a cup of coffee. The kind that makes you stop stirring your drink for a moment because you are suddenly not quite sure of the answer.

When I was younger, I used to believe people changed. Completely. That the shy child became the confident adult, the dreamer became the realist… That somewhere along the way, life quietly replaced one version of us with another.

But now, I am not so sure.

The older I get, the more I wonder if life isn’t changing us at all. Perhaps it’s simply introducing us to parts of ourselves we hadn’t met yet… Think about it. You don’t know how patient you are until life gives you a reason to wait. You don’t know how brave you are until something frightens you. You don’t know how strong you are until life politely ignores your opinion on the matter…

Some lessons arrive exactly when you least expect them. While others show up unannounced, settle in without asking permission and quietly rearrange the furniture of our hearts… And those experiences are the ones that stay with us. Not because we wanted them. But because they left us seeing the world a little differently.

When I became a teacher, I thought I’d spend my days helping children learn. I never though how much they would teach me in return: Patience, perspective, how wonderfully honest people can be before they learn to overthinking, how laughter can rescue a difficult day…

Life has a funny way of turning into students when we least expect it. Then, there are the experiences we’d never choose. The ones that leave empty chairs at the table. The ones that make ordinary days feels unfamiliar for a while… I wish those moments did not exist. But they do. And somehow, even in grief, we discover things about ourselves. Not because suffering makes us better people. No… I don’t believe that… But because it shows how deeply we are capable of loving. And perhaps, love was there all along. We simply didn’t know how big it was until we had to carry its absence…

Thankfully, life isn’t made only of difficult lessons. Sometimes, it introduces us to ourselves in gentler ways. A puppy who convinces you that socks are toys. A favourite book that finds you exactly at the right moment. A quiet morning with a cup of coffee before the world begins asking things of you.

Those little moments matter too! In fact… I think they matter the most. Because while big experiences shape the chapters of our lives…the little ones shape the person reading them…

Maybe that’s why I’ve stopped trying so hard to become someone new. Instead, I’m learning to notice the person I’m already becoming. A little calmer, a little kinder, I hope. Still hopelessly optimistic about buying books faster than I can read them and that coffee tastes better from my favourite mugs.

Some things, thankfully, never change….

So…. Are we shapes more by our experiences? Or by who we are?

I don’t think I can separate the two anymore. Perhaps who we are determines how we experience the world. And our experiences gently polish that person over time. Like the sea smoothing a stone.. Not changing what it is, simply revealing its shape.

Maybe that’s all growing up really means. Not becoming someone else. Just becoming a little more recognisably ourselves. And somehow… I find that thought rather comforting…

So… What do you think?

Have your experiences changed you? Or have they simply revealed who you’ve been all along?