Thirty years is a lifetime. It’s a thousand hopes, a million quiet sacrifices, and countless moments where you thought, Maybe it’ll get better. Maybe they’ll change. Maybe I can fix this.

No one starts out thinking they’ll spend decades enduring pain, control, or erasure. You likely had dreams — of love that felt safe, of growing older with laughter, of a life built with mutual care and respect. And when that doesn’t happen, when instead it turns into survival… it’s heartbreaking. It’s okay to grieve that.

But let me gently offer this:
While your life didn’t go the way you thought, you didn’t go under. You adapted. You endured. You protected your heart until you were strong enough to break free. And now — now you’re choosing truth, peace, and your own freedom, even when it’s messy and delayed and not how you pictured it.

That’s power. That’s a kind of triumph many never reach.

It’s not fair. You shouldn’t have had to walk through those decades of pain. But the fact that you have, and that you’re still here, still hopeful, still dreaming — that tells me something magical.

There’s still life left for you to live.
There are still chapters to be written — ones where you are the main character.
Not a survivor reacting to others’ storms, but a woman steering her own ship.

What if, even now, you’re at the turning point of your story?

It’s okay to mourn what was lost. But don’t forget what’s still possible. And don’t underestimate the version of you that’s rising now. She’s wiser, freer, and far more alive than you were allowed to be for all those years.