This path wasn’t walked alone—not truly. Every face, every clash, every moment of silence or pain or inspiration has carved something into me. So this is not a polite thank-you section. This is a reckoning with the truth that every soul I’ve crossed paths with—whether they knew it or not—left fingerprints on my transformation.

The forgotten ones, the misfits, the ones society steps over—they taught me more than any book ever could. They showed me what survival looks like up close. Raw. Undistilled. They handed me lessons in authenticity, in grit, and in the strange, stubborn beauty of the human spirit. And the so-called “normal” people? Teachers, artists, cops, doctors—they were the mirrors. Reflecting society’s rhythms back at me so I could see the dissonance more clearly. Some loved me. Some hated me. Some just watched. All contributed.

My family—present or absent—wove their own threads into this journey. And those who betrayed me, those I betrayed in turn—they cracked open parts of me I might never have examined without the sting. That pain? It was alchemy in disguise.

To my past self: I know you didn’t know better. You did what you could. But you bore the fallout. I see you. I carry you. To my future self: I trust you’ll use the harvest well. And to my present self—keep digging. Keep going in. That’s where the light lives.

TULWA is not just mine. It’s a collective mosaic built from the collisions, connections, and crossings of every life that touched mine. That includes those who gave nothing consciously—but whose very indifference revealed something I needed to learn. This is what interconnectedness really means.

So, to the visible and the invisible ones—to the allies and adversaries, to the lost and the found, and to every soul who stood at a fork in my road, whether for a second or a season—this journey holds your echo. Your impact lives here.

This is acknowledgment. Not as obligation, but as truth. Thank you. All of you.