Well, this is the first DP I have done in ages!
If you asked me to name one positive change I’ve made in my life…
I wouldn’t know where to start.
Because it wasn’t one thing.
It was a slow unraveling… and a gentle return.
I used to stay too long.
In conversations that drained me…
In situations that didn’t sit right in my gut…
Around people who needed me to be smaller, quieter, and easier to manage.
And I’d explain myself.
God, I’d explain myself to exhaustion…
As if my leaving required permission.
One of the most positive changes I’ve made… is learning that walking away doesn’t make me cruel, it makes me honest.
I used to think strength meant holding everything in.
Keeping it together.
Being the one who coped.
But all that “strength” was doing… was quietly breaking me behind the scenes.
Now? I let myself feel it.
The grief.
The love.
The anger.
The ache of missing someone who’s no longer here.
I don’t rush it away anymore.
I sit with it… like an old friend who finally gets a seat at the table.
Somewhere along the line… I also found my way back to myself.
Not in some dramatic, movie-worthy moment, but in small, quiet choices.
Picking up a paintbrush again. Letting my mind wander. Remembering that I existed before I became everything to everyone else.
I didn’t become someone new. I just stopped abandoning who I already was.
And maybe the biggest shift of all… was learning to love fully, knowing how it ends.
Because love always comes with a cost. Loss is part of the deal.
I used to think the answer was to hold back, to protect myself from the inevitable.
But now I know… the real loss isn’t in the goodbye. It’s in the love you were too afraid to give while you had the chance.
So I love.
Deeply.
Openly.
Even when I know it will hurt one day.
And through all of this… I’ve started trusting my own voice.
Not the loudest voice in the room. Not the most agreeable one.
Just… mine.
The quiet one that always knew the truth, even when I didn’t listen.
So no, it wasn’t one positive change.
It was many small, stubborn ones.
Layered over time.
A choosing.
A returning.
A remembering.
A becoming.
Mae 🧡
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