The radical mercy here lies in its refusal to distinguish between the young person still forming and the middle-aged soul wondering if the door has closed—both are equally unfinished. Fitzgerald, who watched his own trajectory shift from prodigy to obscurity to rediscovery, understood that "becoming" isn't a sprint with a finish line but an ongoing conversation with yourself. What saves this from sentimentality is the phrase "for what it's worth," a humble shrug that acknowledges becoming yourself might not earn applause or fortune, yet the work of it remains worthwhile anyway. A person leaving a corporate job at fifty-two to become a teacher isn't erasing their past; they're simply accepting that the person they've *become* now gets to choose what comes next.