“I know pretty much what I like and dislike, but please, don’t ask me who I am. A passionate, fragmentary girl, maybe?”— Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

It’s easy to list the things we like and dislike with precision. Even if you’re the kind of person who isn't always vocal about your thoughts, deep down, you still know what those things are.

It feels safe when someone asks what I like or what I’m passionate about — because those are easier to name, to understand. But it’s nerve-wracking when I’m asked, “Who are you?” Because I don’t know how to answer that.

Not fully.

Not yet.

That question shakes my core. I don't think there's an easy answer — not even at the very end. Would I ever be able to put all the things I am into one sentence? And it’s not because I’m empty — it’s because I’m everything all at once. Life is vast, and all the lives I’ve lived within it are even more so.

There are pieces of every person I’ve met in me. I am all the things I believe in. I am a museum of connections and emotions.I am every word I’ve ever said, and every word I’ve held back. I am my pain and my regrets.I am the risks I took, the fights I fought. I am my thoughts, my doubts, my unfinished dreams.

I am a blank canvas that life keeps painting — with colors bold, soft, uncertain. I am both a masterpiece and a work in progress.

Maybe “who I am” isn’t a definition. Maybe it’s a journey — a becoming.

The thing about life is, we never stop learning. Every day, we shift. We can focus on new things at any stage, and that’s beautiful. To speak of a life fully lived is to speak of every shade you’ve been — and every shade you never got the chance to become.

Maybe we never fully know ourselves while we’re still alive.Maybe we weren’t meant to.

We were created with an ache, a hunger — and we keep wanting, keep searching. Some things may fill us for a time, but nothing holds forever. Because to live is to be unraveled, to shift and evolve. Even those who fear change feel its nudge eventually — that quiet whisper that says, “Live.”

And so, we are stories that stopped mid-sentence. Portraits still waiting for the last brushstroke. Poems forever unfinished.
Maybe true satisfaction doesn’t come until the very end. And maybe… that’s okay.

Maybe the searching is the point. Because the moment the search ends, so does the thrill — and what’s life without that?

But even in the mess and motion of it all, I know one thing: I don’t want to be just scattered pieces without a center.

I want to feel whole. I don’t know what that looks like yet.

But for now,

I am a passionate, fragmentary girl.

Maybe?