I knew exactly what I had to do.
Get through today.
Then tomorrow.
Then whatever came after that.
There was always something in front of me that needed to be handled. Something to worry about. Something to fix. Something I had to prepare myself for.
I became really good at surviving.
I learned how to function when I was exhausted.
How to show up when I wanted to disappear.
How to answer I'm okay when I wasn't.
How to keep moving when I had absolutely no idea where I was going.
For so long, strength meant one thing:
Don't stop.
And I didn't.
That part of my story is already written.
I fought.
I fell apart.
I got back up.
I kept knocking on doors.
Eventually, some of them opened.
I found a job.
I found a home.
I started building a life again.
Those things once felt so far away that I couldn't even picture them. In the Afterword of my story, I wrote about finally having a job and a place where my children and I could walk through the door and say, We're home.
I thought getting there would be the end of the hard part.
I didn't realize there would be another question waiting for me.
Now what?
Survival gives you instructions.
Living doesn't.
When you're surviving, the goal is obvious.
Make it through the day.
Pay the bill.
Go to work.
Show up.
Handle the next thing.
Don't fall apart.
But when the emergency starts to quiet down, there isn't someone standing there handing you directions for what comes next.
Suddenly, you're supposed to have a life.
And I'm realizing I don't completely know what I want mine to look like.
That's strange to admit.
After everything I've fought for, shouldn't I know?
I know what I don't want.
I know what chaos feels like.
I know what uncertainty feels like.
I know what it feels like to make decisions based on someone else's mood, someone else's choices, someone else's presence or absence.
But ask me what I want simply because it makes me happy?
That question is harder.
What do I like now?
Not what did I like twenty years ago.
Not what did we like.
Not what do my children like.
Not what should a woman my age be doing with her life.
What do I like?
What kind of music do I turn on when nobody else is listening?
What do I want to do on a Saturday when there is nowhere I have to be?
What makes my home feel like mine?
What do I want to learn?
Where do I want to go?
What makes me laugh?
What makes me feel peaceful?
What makes me feel alive?
They're such ordinary questions.
And somehow they feel enormous.
Maybe because for the first time, the answers belong entirely to me.
I used to think becoming would be dramatic.
That after everything I had been through, there would be this moment where I would finally meet the strong, healed woman waiting on the other side.
I'm starting to think I had that wrong.
Maybe becoming looks ridiculously ordinary.
Buying something for my home simply because I like it.
Changing my mind.
Trying something and deciding it isn't for me.
Sitting alone without believing that being alone means I've been abandoned.
Laughing without immediately remembering everything I have to be sad about.
Making plans that have nothing to do with fixing my life.
Wanting things again.
Dreaming again.
Maybe even being a little selfish about what I want the rest of my life to feel like.
Not cruel.
Not careless.
Just finally willing to include myself in the life I'm building.
There is a version of strength I know very well.
She clenches her teeth.
She gets through it.
She finds a way.
She keeps going.
I needed her.
There were times she carried me when I couldn't imagine carrying myself.
But maybe I don't need to ask her to run my entire life.
Maybe strength can look different now.
Maybe I don't always need to be preparing for the next thing to go wrong.
Maybe peace doesn't have to make me suspicious.
Maybe an ordinary day doesn't need to be filled with something productive to be worth having.
Maybe I am allowed to enjoy the life I fought so hard to stay in.
That last one is difficult for me.
Because survival became familiar.
And familiar can feel safe even when it isn't where you want to live forever.
I don't have some beautiful answer to the question yet.
Who am I when I'm not surviving?
I don't know.
And for once, I don't think I don't know is something I need to fix.
Maybe I get to find out slowly.
Maybe that's what this next part is.
Not rebuilding the woman I used to be.
Not proving that everything I went through made me stronger.
Not turning every painful thing into a lesson.
Just living long enough to discover who I am when my life isn't organized around what hurt me.
I want to know that woman.
The one who chooses things because she loves them.
The one who makes plans because she's excited about tomorrow.
The one who can have a quiet day without waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The one who doesn't need a crisis to prove how strong she is.
For most of this story, I have written about the woman who survived.
Maybe it's finally time to write about the woman who gets to live.