What If You Chose This?

July 22, 2025 · 2 min read

Grief can be a portal. If you let it, it will carry you all the way home.

I’m on day 22 of my 31-day writing challenge. And today, you find me here… not victorious, not broken. Just human. Sitting with sadness. Letting it breathe without trying to fix it.

I don’t know if it’s the hormones. Or the fact that I’ve spent three weeks sharing my life with the unknown public. Or maybe it’s simply the shock of seeing my whole story on paper. The sheer volume of what it took to become this version of me.

Sometimes I wonder… what would life have felt like in one house? With two parents? With siblings? What would life have been if I had stayed anywhere? But those are not my questions to answer.

The Phrase That Rethreaded My Soul

Yesterday, I was spiraling out loud with a dear friend and spiritual mentor. I spent the first few minutes trauma dumping — rattling off pain like it was currency. She let me get it out. And when I finally paused to breathe, she said something that changed everything:

“What if your mother was training you to be adaptable? What if all those moves… were part of your path to become a traveler, a drifter, a wise woman meant to walk wild lands?”

What if?

That single phrase cracked my shame wide open.

I remembered: I chose her.

I chose him.

I chose this life. This curriculum. This soul contract.

Every lesson — every ache, every uprooting — was a page in my warrior’s map.

Not a punishment. A preparation.

The In-Between Space

I’ve been sitting in this in-between space for a few years now. Feeling other people’s traumas crash into mine. Feeling trapped in emotional quicksand, and still — still — finding a way to move forward through it.

Because the truth is: the lessons we’re given… we asked for them. Before we came here, we said yes. And the question now is not why. It’s… are we brave enough to learn them?

Healing out loud is part of my calling. And this space — this page, this platform — has become one of the lifelines I didn’t know I needed. Just when I thought I’d given up on hope, on myself, on the thrill of being me… I remembered a truth that’s held me through storms:

Everything has already worked itself out. Even when I can’t see the path. Even when I feel like crawling back to bed. Even when the fire seems out — I am still here. And that means I’m not finished yet.

This is my purpose: to live in alignment, in harm to none. To show up. Even on the hard days. Especially on the hard days.

Because every time I do… I step deeper into who I’m here to be.

Are you becoming the master of the lesson?
Or the casualty of the test?