I wouldn’t trade lives with a soul. This one’s mine. I earned every inch of it the hard way. Not through luck. Not through handshakes or mentors or some neat little roadmap. I clawed it together out of mistakes, misfires, and moments no one saw but me. And now that it works, now that I can breathe, I don’t owe anyone the clean version.
It cost more than anyone warned me. Not in money or reputation. In weight. In silence. In biting my tongue until it bled. In carrying doubt like it was part of the uniform. Some wounds were my fault. Some were just the tax for not playing the game the way it was written. Either way, they marked me.
People see the wins now. The calm. The confidence. What they don’t see is the wreckage I stepped over to get here and much of it I caused. They don’t feel the bruises that don’t show anymore. But I do. Every day. That memory lives in my body.
This isn’t about regret. I did what I had to do and now I can admit I could have done it more elegantly. But don’t mistake survival for endorsement. If I could’ve skipped the years of proving, the nights of second-guessing, the exhaustion of explaining myself, I would have. Every single time.
I don’t need applause. I don’t need to perform resilience. I am making it. Not cleanly, not quietly, but fully. And I’m not dragging the old weight another step. It’s over. I’m done carrying ghosts.
This is my life. No edits. No apology. No more looking back.