The Things We Carry Into Tomorrow
Read more poetry by Britt Wolfe
Life teaches us,
over and over again,
that nothing is ever truly left behind.
Every joy,
every bruise,
every quiet unspoken longing
travels with us—
stitched into the lining
of who we are becoming.
We pretend we outgrow our past,
that the years fall away
like old paint flaking from the walls.
But the truth is gentler,
and heavier:
we do not shed our former selves—
we absorb them.
They become the scaffolding
for our strength,
the hidden architecture
of our tenderness.
The things we carry into tomorrow
are not burdens to release,
but instructions—
reminders of how to bend without breaking,
how to rise without forgetting,
how to choose softness
after the world has tried
to harden us.
Life is not a straight line;
it is a spiral,
bringing us back
to the same lessons
with deeper understanding,
greater humility,
and a quieter kind of courage.
And maybe that’s the truth
we spend a lifetime learning:
that becoming whole
is not about discarding
the versions of ourselves
we no longer recognize,
but about gathering them—
gently, patiently—
until we are finally able to say,
All of this is me.
All of this brought me here.
All of this is mine to carry
into the light of what comes next.
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Poetry Anthologies by Britt Wolfe:
