09/06/2026
You're such a strong woman...
Words I've heard so many times, words that both make me feel proud and sad all at once... words that bring tears to my eyes because if they only knew how hard it was to become this woman I am today.
The pain, the loneliness, the trauma, the abuse... always feeling like I was too much, or never enough... the hurt that covered my heart in the thick walls of my shadows, trying to "protect" me from everything I have ever endured.
They don't know of the shell of a woman I once was... numb to my life, to my children, my husband, my friends, myself... fearing what would happen if I got too comfortable, too close, what would happen if I let the weight of my wounds out onto them... still worried I was too much & not enough all at the same time.
They don't see the woman who spent years, YEARS, dismantling everything that once felt "safe," even at the expense of me actually living presently in my world.
They never witnessed the tears, the screams of agony, the despair of uncovering my past wounds... of discovering when I was failed over & over again by those I was meant to trust.
They never saw the meltdowns, the begging for the pain to go away, the wishing I wouldn't wake from one morning to the next... the struggle of rebuilding on the ashes of a life that I no longer fit into... that I never truly fit into.
They haven't seen me raw, broken, & bared open... they haven't seen the woman who finally stopped running from her own shadows, the woman who sat with her pain instead of abandoning herself inside of it, the woman who learned that healing wasn't about becoming who she was before... it was about becoming someone she had never been allowed to be.
Whole.
Soft.
Powerful.
Present.
Sovereign.
They haven't seen the countless times I had to choose myself when every part of me wanted to disappear. They haven't seen me learn how to trust my own voice, how to set boundaries without apologizing, how to love without losing myself, how to receive without feeling undeserving.
They never saw the woman who had to learn how to rest without believing I had to earn it, how to feel my feelings without allowing them to define me, how to look at the woman in the mirror & finally recognize her, myself, for the first time ever in my life.
So when you tell me I'm a strong woman... I hear you and I understand why you say this.
But I also hear the story behind those words, every single story I hold in my soul. Because this strength wasn't something I was simply born with... it was forged through pain, through grief, through rage, through tears.
Through the uncomfortable unraveling of everything I once believed I had to be.
And still...
I didn't become strong because life was gentle with me. I became strong in spite of it. Because somewhere beneath all the pain, there was a woman who refused to abandon herself... a woman who kept reaching for herself, a woman who kept choosing herself, a woman who, even in her darkest moments, was still whispering...
"There has to be more than this... I am still here and I want to live!"
And she was right... there was. There is... and now I don't want to simply survive this life. I want to LIVE in it, THRIVE in it!
Fully.
Wildly.
Softly.
Sacredly.
With my whole heart open.
With my shadows beside me instead of hidden away.
With every scar reminding me that I made it here.
So yes... I am a strong woman.
But more than that... I am a woman who came back to herself over and over again, every single day.
And Goddess... I am so fu***ng proud of her, of me... and I always will be.
