Some people never tell you what they see in you.
You notice that, around them, you behave as if you’re capable of more.
Not because they push you.
Not because they tell you that you have to be.
But because they treat something in you as if it already exists.
They trust you with something you wouldn’t have trusted yourself with.
They ask for your opinion at the exact moment you’re certain you have nothing intelligent to say.
They aren’t surprised when you succeed.
As if they already knew that part of you.
I think it’s strange how often we come to know ourselves through someone else’s eyes.
Someone sees courage while you’re still calling it recklessness.
Someone sees talent where you see something you happen to do.
Someone sees a person capable of carrying much more than they’re carrying now.
And they don’t have to say any of it.
Maybe that’s the point.
Because it’s easy to tell someone you believe in them.
It’s much harder to behave as if you do.
Not to withdraw your trust the moment they make a mistake.
Not to remind them of every weakness when it would be easiest to use one to win an argument.
Not to reduce them to what they did yesterday.
Not to keep them forever in the version of themselves you first met.
Some people will tell you they love you many times.
Some won’t know how to say it properly even once.
But around them, little by little, you’ll begin to take up more space in your own life.
And only much later will you realise they saw that space before you did.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Negar Nikkhah on Unsplash
