Dear Not So Secret Diary,

Every one of us hits a brick wall at some point. A moment where continuing feels harder than quitting. Where the walls hit is so hard it knocks your breath out, knocks you on the ground, and makes you think this is the moment I can't recover from. When you've taken a hit that hard, the real question becomes: how do I convince myself to not only get up and try again, but to also believe that it will actually work out? For me, searching for the answer was simple. On the ground, I decided to go back to the beginning. Before the wall. Before the doubt. Before the moments that made me question everything. I went back to the version of myself that had hope. The version that believed without needing proof. I needed to remember what that felt like. I needed to know how to believe again.

In searching for some grand answer or epiphany, the lesson I learned was acceptance. The only way to believe again is to accept what the journey truly requires. Acceptance that the journey forward will be hard. Acceptance that the journey will be filled with tasks I didn't enjoy. Acceptance that I might have to walk parts of it alone. Acceptance that I deserved everything I was walking towards. What was perhaps the hardest acceptance of all? In order to become this new version of myself, I would have to say goodbye to the version that got me this far. That version had done her job. She kept me alive. She protected me. But she couldn’t take me where I was going next.

That was where the real struggle began, because acceptance carries grief. Saying goodbye to the old version of me was almost as painful as saying goodbye to my sister when she passed. This version had been with me for as long as I could remember. I wasn't ashamed of her; I was proud of everything she survived. I felt very protective of her. But she deserved the peace that came with being laid to rest. I was experiencing grief on multiple levels. Grief that comes from no longer being able to run from discomfort. Grief from facing pain head-on. It didn't even have a name; I could just feel it sitting heavy in my chest. What made it bearable was knowing those tears wouldn't be wasted. They were the very water needed to nourish the new seeds I had begun planting

With every lesson learned comes a blessing earned (even if it didn't look the way I expected). When I first thought about the blessings of believing again, I assumed they would be monetary, material, or visible. Gifts. Lifestyle changes. Recognition. Those are the things the world calls blessings. The things we work for and proudly display. But when I finally sat down and searched honestly, I stopped looking through the world’s lens and started looking through my own. The blessings I found were knowledge, wisdom, and magic. The knowledge to recognize past mistakes and choose differently. The wisdom to understand my pace, no longer rushing or procrastinating. And the magic of realizing that my dreams were not only possible but expandable.

And this was the moment everything began to shift. To dare to believe again meant reconnecting with the spark that made me believe in the first place. I allowed that light to shine so brightly within me that it created the heat I needed to do the work. I learned to be wildly bold about what was possible for my future while staying disciplined and grounded in what needed to be done in the present. Before I could dare to do the impossible, I had to realign. I had to heal. I had to transform. I had to accept. And once I did, I was finally ready to move forward.

Warm Hugs,

Capree'