Chapter 46 - the woman who asked me what came next
A year later, I was invited to speak to the newest group of foundation fellows.
One young woman raised her hand.
"What comes after you win?"
I paused.
The question was simple.
The answer wasn't.
"I used to think you won when the person who hurt you lost."
The room was silent.
"Then I thought you won when you got your power back."
I smiled.
"I was still wrong."
"What is winning, then?"
I looked around the room.
"Being able to build a life that no longer needs the original fight."
The girl nodded.
"Does that mean you forget what happened?"
"No."
"Then how do you move on?"
"You stop asking the past for permission."
The room remained quiet.
I looked at the young women in front of me.
Some were ambitious.
Some were frightened.
Some were still carrying stories they hadn't told anyone.
I knew that feeling.
So I said the thing I wished someone had said to me years earlier.
"You don't have to become hard to become strong."
Several faces softened.
"Strength isn't the absence of tenderness."
I took a breath.
"Sometimes strength is protecting the part of yourself that stayed kind."
When I left the room, I realized I had finally found something I wanted to pass down.
Not money.
Not power.
May you like
Permission.
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