Truthfully

A child hears what goes unsaid. Mama keeps the doorway open; Grandma pulls up a chair. The truth that once risked belonging becomes a way to make room for someone else.

Connected song on Aún Soy Mío
De Verdad

From being welcome to making room.

Wanting acceptance comes first. Refusing to erase the truth follows. Between them are particular memories of love: a doorway left open and a chair already waiting. By the end, that welcome can be offered to someone else. Power grows without requiring the heart to harden.

I can love and stand my groundFrom the lyrics of Truthfully

Belonging is not a prize for disappearing.

The need for acceptance does not make the refusal to erase yourself less courageous. He remembers how much it hurt to feel that being himself could cost him love, and chooses not to make someone else face that same bargain. This song keeps both feelings alive, then changes who can offer the welcome. The person once waiting for permission becomes someone able to make room. Kindness survives the growth of power because it becomes a choice, not a condition of being tolerated.

On Still My Own

The album begins with a welcome that reaches further in the title track: belonging to yourself does not mean staying who you first understood yourself to be. What you felt then could have been real. What you discover and choose now can be real, too. You can be loving, defiant, thoughtful, sensual, certain in one moment and questioning in another. None of those moments has to contain the whole of you, and none automatically makes the others false. Your life remains yours without requiring you to remain the same. In Truthfully, that freedom reaches another person: remembering what exclusion cost him, he chooses to offer a welcome that does not demand the same sacrifice. By the title track, the invitation makes room for what he has yet to understand in himself, without withdrawing the chair he has learned to offer others.