This morning, on my way to work, I got off the bus with my music playing.
It was one of those quiet morning walks. The kind where you are moving through the world, but also inside yourself. Inner peace in your ears. Thoughts moving slow. Body moving forward.
I turned the corner and saw an old man looking right at me.
His lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear him because of my music. So I took one earbud out and said, “Huh? What did you say?”
He looked at me and repeated himself.
“Good morning, Giant. I was just saying good morning, Giant.”
I smiled and said good morning back.
Then I kept walking.
At first, I laughed to myself. Not in a bad way. It just caught me off guard. I thought, this man really just called me Giant on a regular morning while I’m walking to work.
But the more I walked, the more it stayed with me.
Maybe he only meant my size. Maybe it was nothing deeper than that. But sometimes life gives you a word through a stranger, and even if you don’t fully understand it in the moment, something in you knows it was worth paying attention to.
Good morning, Giant.
I don’t write that with pride. I don’t write it to make myself bigger than anyone else.
I write it because earlier this year, I made a promise to myself that I would stop shrinking.
Not in arrogance. Not in ego. Not to be seen as better.
But because I have spent enough of my life surviving, rebuilding, learning, losing, correcting, and becoming. I have been through the fire. I have walked in it, stood in it, and somehow came out stronger, wiser, and better.
And after all of that, there comes a point where playing small is no longer humility.
Sometimes it is fear dressed up as modesty.
Humility does not mean denying what you have survived.
Humility does not mean pretending you have not grown.
Humility does not mean lowering your head every time life reminds you that you are still here, still standing, still becoming.
Real humility is gratitude.
It is knowing you did not make it through the fire by accident.
It is knowing strength is not something to worship, but something to carry with responsibility.
It is knowing you can stand tall without standing above anyone.
That is the balance I am learning.
I can be grateful and still be honest.
I can be humble and still acknowledge growth.
I can be quiet and still have presence.
I can be kind and still refuse to shrink.
That old man probably kept walking too. Maybe he forgot the moment before I even reached the next block.
But I didn’t.
Because sometimes the world sees something in you before you are fully comfortable naming it in yourself.
Sometimes becoming happens so slowly that you do not notice the shape it is giving you.
Then one morning, a stranger looks at you and says a word that makes you laugh first, then think later.
Good morning, Giant.
Maybe it was just a greeting.
Maybe it was a reminder.
Either way, I received it.
Not as a crown.
Not as a title.
But as a small sign to keep walking upright.
To not shrink.
To not apologize for the strength that discipline, pain, faith, and time have built in me.
To remember that surviving the fire is not something to hide.
It is something to honor.
Fragments continue.