No regrets.

There comes a moment when you have to say, "enough!" It's almost primal...a roar...from the very center of you. You realize all that you thought mattered - the importance it all once held for you - means more than your own happiness and the sadness...the anger...the injustice of that takes center stage. It's not selfishness...it's survival. It's self-protection. It's love. Who you have become is no longer someone you would spend time with if given the choice. The tears come more frequently and your very center cries for change...it screams...so loud sometimes that it's all that you hear...until, it IS all that you hear. Your inner voice can no longer be ignored - she takes the forefront of everything you do.

And then something happens. And you know, beyond any doubt, that YOUR happiness depends on your willingness to walk away... your desire to become the bigger, more beautiful version of yourself. And without it, love cannot survive.

Footprint in front of footprint you step, as if outside of yourself, and you take that unknown, uncertain, fearful step forward and realize that only FAITH and HOPE allow you to courageously move forward. Faith that what you desired, long before all the other nonsense took precedence, will carry you to a place where the light shows you the way. And a hope that you deserve happiness, love, joy and a life as you always dreamed it to be. And so you allow these two untangeable emotions guide your heart forward and you know, in your deepest of places, that it will be better.

Sometimes that which we initially see becomes less of what we desire. Because it looks different. Perhaps it disappoints. it is not at all what you thought it would be...look like...feel like. And you feel disenchantment toward it - a kind of resentment maybe. And you realize how it hardened you. But, after the clouds part, you see that it also propeled you into a place you may have not even thought to consider and doors open and you see, with a sense of relief and joy, that it is EXACTLY where you were meant to be.

The strength from that realization roars again inside you. And the beauty of the emotions you passed through to get here save you. They remind you that you are utterly, 100% human. Fallible. Strong. Capable. Unwavering.

And when you look back at the end of your life, these are the defining moments. You stood up. You took a stand. Or you had the courage to JUST walk away. And you realize, in so many ways you were stronger than you ever thought possible and all the other things, the uncharted, discolored moments fall away.

No regrets.