The Light We Carry

Sometimes I feel as though I can see an aura around a person. A kind of glow, as though there is something about them that extends beyond the physical shape of their body.

I'm not religious or spiritual, and I don't believe I am seeing anything supernatural. Perhaps it's simply the way I experience people: their warmth, their presence, the small things I notice without quite understanding why. We are made of matter, of energy, and I sometimes wonder whether what I feel is my mind trying to give shape to something I cannot quite explain.

But it makes me wonder something else.

Can other people see it in me, too?

I've spent much of my life looking for the things that might be wrong with me. I've worried about being awkward, feeling too much, talking too much, and being somehow different from the people around me. It's much easier for me to imagine what others might dislike about me than to consider what they might see in me.

Perhaps they see things I cannot.

Perhaps they see enthusiasm where I see intensity, warmth where I see awkwardness, or someone who is genuinely glad to see them when I am busy worrying about whether I have said the right thing.

I have spent so long trying to understand the parts of myself that feel difficult that I have rarely stopped to consider what those same qualities might look like from the outside.

I know I feel things deeply. A small kindness can stay with me for hours. A wave from a passing car can make an ordinary morning feel brighter. For a long time, I thought of this sensitivity mostly as something I needed to manage. Now I wonder whether it also allows me to notice things I might otherwise miss.

I don't know whether people can actually see a glow around me. Perhaps the light I perceive in others is simply the way I experience their presence. But perhaps there is something worth considering in the question itself.

I've spent years looking for evidence that there is something wrong with me. Perhaps it's time to become curious about what might be right.

I don't want to spend my life burning myself out trying to prove that I am worth something. I want to believe that there is something good in me even when I am still, when I have nothing to prove and nothing to give.

Sometimes I look at another person and feel as though there is a light around them.

I wonder if, sometimes, someone looks at me and feels it too.

Perhaps I'll never know. But for the first time, I find myself wondering without immediately assuming the answer is no.