On my wedding day, I walked in with a black eye. My fiancé stood beside me… and when he looked at my mother, he smiled. Then he said, “She needed to learn.” The room burst into laughter. And that’s when I did something no one expected.

“I don’t know what I want anymore. I only know that I don’t want to be the person I was. But I’m scared to move forward, scared to make a mistake. What if I lose myself again? What if this freedom is just another cage in disguise?”

She set the pen down and rubbed her eyes, feeling the weight of the question hanging in the air. She had been asking herself continue reading …