I rise in the face of new challenges.

Rising almost never feels like rising from the inside.

First day at a new job: the hands are cold, you ask where the toilets are twice because you forgot the answer, you laugh a beat late at something that wasn't a joke. Nothing in that hour feels like courage. Six months on, it is the day you point to as when you started.

What gets called rising is mostly staying in the room while being bad at something. The competence catches up on its own, in the background, without telling you it has begun.