In the End, There Is Freedom
In the End, There Is Freedom
Today I wrote a journal entry that took me a very long way back once again. To a little girl who had no chance of understanding what was happening around her. To many years in which I carried things that should never have been mine. And to all the moments when I look back today and wonder how my life might have turned out if I had known sooner what I know today.
These thoughts make me sad. But they are no longer everything. Because when I look at my life today, I no longer see only what was taken from me. I also see what I have since taken back: my own voice, my decisions, my boundaries, my creativity, my dreams, and above all the right to shape my life in a way that feels right to me.
I don't have to prove anything anymore
For so many years of my life, I felt like I wasn't right. Not good enough, not adaptable enough, not successful enough, not easygoing enough. Today I understand more and more that I don't have to be any of that.
I'm allowed to like things others don't understand. I'm allowed to take paths not everyone approves of. I'm allowed to let some people close and keep others at a distance. I'm allowed to change my mind. I'm allowed to decide. And I'm allowed to be happy without asking anyone's permission first.
That may sound obvious. For a long time, it wasn't for me.
Surviving slowly turns into living
My nervous system learned to survive very early on. To adapt, to sense danger before it came, to watch people closely and pick up on moods. Much of that helped me get through. Today I no longer need these strategies in the same way.
I'm allowed to learn that calm can really be calm. That closeness doesn't automatically mean having to give myself up. That a no doesn't set off a catastrophe. That I am not responsible for how other people react to my boundaries. And that my life no longer depends on pleasing everyone.
It doesn't happen overnight. But it happens.
Today I see the good, too
One of the biggest changes for me is that I can look at my past without declaring my whole life lost because of it.
There was beauty. There was love. There were people and moments that meant something to me. There were my children, friendships, travels, creativity, music, pictures, places, dreams, and countless little moments I'm grateful for. And there is still so much ahead of me.
I can't change the chances I didn't have as a child. But I can decide which chances I give myself today. That, to me, is freedom.
Today I get to choose
Maybe I would have done some things sooner if I had understood sooner. Maybe I would have been braver. Maybe I would have left some relationships earlier, made some decisions differently, and lived some of my dreams much sooner.
But that other life doesn't exist. This one does. And this very life is one I no longer want to spend grieving the years behind me.
I want to be curious about the years to come. I want to create, travel, write, and paint. I want to try new things. I want to be surrounded by people with whom I don't have to wonder who I'm allowed to be.
I want to show my children that change is possible – even at 42, even after difficult years, and even when a new beginning is frightening at first.
What healing means to me today
Not forgetting everything. Not forgiving everything. Not pretending nothing happened. But realizing at some point that the past has less and less say in what the next day looks like.
That there is room again. For ideas, lightness, and anticipation. For people. For places I have never been. And for things I don't even know yet that I will one day love.
My life deserved a different beginning. But I get to decide how it goes on.
And if there is one thing I take away from all of this, it's this: I am no longer the little girl who has to wait for someone else to give her a chance.
Today I can give it to myself.
And that is exactly what I intend to do. ♥