

The only time you should ever look back on life is to see how far you have come.
I have been waiting for the day when I wake up and my heart isn’t beating out of my chest. When the first thing I think about isn’t if I am going to live or die. I have been waiting for the day when I can cook the kids breakfast with Alexa playing our favorite songs and I am not thinking about my walls caving in on me. The biggest thing I have been waiting for is the day I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize the person looking back at me, because I have changed. I. have. changed. And that is the single greatest reality of moving forward; that is the incredible outcome of surviving the hardest parts of my journey.
It got pretty messy at times. I have wounds and scars from fighting. I have cried more than one should. I grieve and continue to mourn many things that I have lost or was taken away from me. But I have grown tremendously. I have received sooo much more than what was taken. I honestly didn’t realize just how much I have changed until I saw these two pictures side by side.
My transformation really though has only just begun. Although I have been working hard on myself for quite sometime now, there is much more to be done as I feel like I am just a baby born again into this new normal… just starting to navigate a path coming out of a thick forest of crap!
But I am growing. I want to encourage you to do the same. Take a look back and see how far you have come. As we are coming out of COVID, and a deep New England hibernation (winter), I am sure you all have lots to grieve. It’s been a tough 16 months but I can assure you have grown from it.
Change is hard, growth is hard. I love the quote by Napoleon Hill- “Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.”
My Auntie Lil always said to me when I was a little girl that we all have to suffer a little to get anything good.
So get uncomfortable, do something hard, struggle, even suffer a bit.
I can assure you from experience, it will all be worth it in the end!
This is beautiful. You are beautiful and one of the strongest people I have ever known!