Noticing

I've been noticing myself lately but not through searching for some hidden version of myself underneath.

Just noticing

The way my mind searches for patterns before I know I am even
looking for them
The way I pull things apart to understand what holds them together
how one question rarely stays one question
The way my curiosity becomes a trail.
The way my attention moves toward whatever doesn't quite make sense.

I've noticed that I don't always need the answer, how sometimes I mistake familiarity for truth

my body has its own language
my memory its own geography
my reactivity its own weather

Some days I'll understand things instantly.
Some things take longer.
Some things I'll hold intellectually before I know what to do with them.

I've noticed I am not always consistent in the way I once thought I needed to be.
I contradict myself, change my mind, ask old questions through different eyes. Sometimes I discover I was wrong. Sometimes I discover I was right for reasons I didn't yet have a language for.
I've learned that understanding something does not necessarily mean I've finished experiencing it.
That knowing the mechanism doesn't make the effect disappear.
Naming something doesn't resolve it.

And still, I'm noticing, learning and recognizing.
Some things I inherited.
Some I became and some things I am still deciding to be.