The Woman Everyone Thought Was Living
People have called me adventurous.
They’ve admired the places I’ve lived, the cities I’ve explored, the countries I’ve visited, and the experiences I’ve collected along the way.
From the outside, I suppose my life has looked pretty interesting.
I’ve lived in different parts of the country. I’ve traveled internationally. I’ve enjoyed beautiful places, wonderful food, and experiences that some people spend their entire lives dreaming about.
I’ve pursued higher education, advanced professionally, earned multiple degrees, reinvented myself, and accomplished things I once wasn’t sure were possible.
I’ve even experienced a physical transformation that changed how I looked and how the world perceived me.
And people see these things and think:
She’s really living her life.
For years, I thought so, too.
But at 50 years old, I’ve come to a realization that has stopped me in my tracks.
I wasn’t necessarily living. I was surviving.
And I’ve been doing it for nearly 44 years.
What You Saw Was What I Allowed You to See
I’m a private person.
I’ve always been selective about what I share, who I share it with, and how much access people have to my personal life.
That doesn’t mean I’ve been dishonest about my experiences.
It means I’ve chosen which parts of myself I wanted the world to see.
And if I’m being truthful, I generally wanted people to see the best of me.
The accomplished woman.
The educated woman.
The independent woman.
The adventurous woman.
The woman who somehow always figured things out.
I didn’t particularly want people seeing the woman who was struggling.
The woman who was exhausted.
The woman who questioned herself.
The woman who sometimes felt alone even while surrounded by people.
Not because those parts of me were shameful, but because I spent so much of my life learning to hold everything together.
And when you’ve been holding yourself together for decades, vulnerability doesn’t always come naturally.
Sometimes, the version of yourself that other people admire is the very version you’ve created to protect the parts of yourself they don’t know exist.
A personal story I’ve spent decades learning how to tell.
People have called me adventurous.
They’ve admired the places I’ve lived, the countries I’ve visited, the degrees I’ve earned, and the different versions of myself I’ve become.
From the outside, it probably looked like I was living a remarkable life.
And for a long time, I thought so, too.
But at 50, I’ve come to understand something about my own story that I wasn’t prepared to admit.
I’ve been surviving since I was about six years old.
For nearly 44 years, I became exceptionally good at being strong, capable, determined, and independent.
So good, in fact, that even I sometimes mistook survival for living.
In this paid edition of Soul Wealth Rebirth Chronicles, I’m sharing the story behind the life people thought they knew.
The little girl who learned to endure. The woman who traveled the world while privately carrying the weight of her past. And the realization that changed how I define success, freedom, and happiness.
Because sometimes the most remarkable-looking lives are hiding the quietest battles.
And sometimes, recognizing that you’ve been surviving is the beginning of learning how to live.
Continue reading with a paid subscription to Soul Wealth Rebirth Chronicles.
