29/06/2026
I’ll call her Monique K.
One day at school, standing between two sets of lockers on the concrete walkway between the science lab and the art and IT rooms, she turned to me and said:
“You know your head is too big for your body.”
A passing comment.
A moment she probably forgot.
A moment that changed the trajectory of my life.
I can still see every detail of it.
For years, I struggled with the way I looked and with the judgement of others. Something I spent most of my life trying to outrun.
So I found the gym.
I found drugs.
I found the lifestyle that came with them.
I never truly loved myself, so I built armour.
I became obsessed with training. Obsessed with tattooing. Obsessed with becoming someone nobody could ignore.
I wanted the world.
And in many ways, I did a very good job of getting it.
The problem was, the lens I viewed it through was never one of congruence.
Much of what I built was fuelled by an unhealed wound.
Eventually, that caught up with me.
I burned out.
Life started presenting circumstances that forced me to slow down.
I fell.
My capacity maxed out.
The ability was always there, but until I addressed the wound beneath it all, I was destined to keep running.
Driven by coping mechanisms I developed as a child that no longer served the man I had become.
The strategy worked.
It built the driven, determined man I am today.
For that, I am grateful.
Grateful for every experience.
Grateful for every lesson.
And grateful that I no longer have to become somebody else to prove I’m enough.
Now, I get to choose who I become next.
