This Is Who I Am. This Is What I Do.

Before I even opened my eyes yesterday, something had shifted.
Not a milestone, exactly—though yes, the numbers had ticked up.
Not the views either, though they were rising faster than usual.

It was a message. Quiet. Simple. Unsolicited.

“It was just what I needed.”

That’s what stayed with me.

Less than two weeks ago, I was celebrating fifty subscribers.
Since then, that number has more than doubled, and a poem I wrote—Vulnerability Is My Superpower—
has become my most-read post by far.

But it’s not the stats that linger.
It’s that one line in my inbox.
That flicker of connection.
That gentle confirmation that the words I released didn’t vanish into the ether—
they landed somewhere.

I’ve written vulnerably before—
about grief,
about the quiet resentment I carried after my mother’s early death.
About how, even before her illness, her absence left its mark in subtler ways.
And how, at school, being different meant being singled out. Bullied.

That’s when I really started learning to shrink.
To make myself smaller.
To stay out of the way.

But most of those stories were about what happened to me.
This was different.

This piece held up a mirror to the quiet adaptations I made in response—
the shape-shifting, the people-pleasing.
The way I’d scan a room and recalibrate,
all in service of being easier to love.

Not consciously.
But thoroughly.

It’s one thing to share the pain others caused.
It’s another to be honest about the compromises you made in response—
especially the ones that cost you pieces of yourself.

This poem was a beginning.
A moment of unlearning.
Of unmasking.

And then came that message:

“It was just what I needed.”

It wasn’t just praise.
It felt like a hand reaching back.
A moment of shared recognition between two people
who’ve learned how hard it is to name the old patterns—
and how vital it is to stop repeating them.

That’s what vulnerability can do when it’s met with care.
It doesn’t just connect us—
it restores us.

It reminded me that words, when shared with honesty, ripple.
And it reminded me: I’m not faking it anymore.

When I launched Brittle Views,
I still hesitated to call myself a writer.
Even after publishing my first book,
“author” felt like a hat I hadn’t quite earned.

I said the words, but I wasn’t sure I believed them.

Now, I do.

Not because of the numbers.
But because I’ve stopped asking for permission.
Because something in me knows:
this is who I am.
This is what I do.

I don’t fist pump, either.
Not that Englishmen of a certain age go in for that sort of thing.
We’re more likely to nod politely at our own success, then make tea—
and immediately question whether we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
If things are really going well, we might even risk a chocolate biscuit.

So yes—
I’ll take a quiet moment.
Breathe in the truth of it.

And then keep writing.

Because in a world obsessed with metrics,
it’s still the quiet notes that matter most.

If someone’s words have stayed with you, consider telling them.
You never know who’s carrying your words forward.
You never know when yours might be the ones that land just right.

We never really know where our words will go.
Only that someone, somewhere, might be waiting for them.