At Dinner, My Son Shouted: “Either You Give My Wife Your Room Or Start Packing!”

I was finally asking the most important question: what do I need? What do I want? How can I help myself?

And the answers were simple but profound: I need peace. I want freedom. I can help myself by choosing myself.

I took out my phone and took a selfie with the sunrise behind me. My hair was messy from the wind, my face bare of makeup, with wrinkles that told the story of 69 years of life.

But my eyes were shining in a way they hadn’t shined in decades. I sent the photo to Emily with a message: “Good morning from paradise.”

She replied with heart emojis and then: “I love you Grandma. You’re my inspiration.”

I put the phone away and kept walking, because that was exactly what I was doing now: moving forward toward the life I deserved, toward the peace I had searched for.

Finally, after so many years of being a mother, a wife, a caregiver, a savior… after so many years of being everything to everyone but myself, I was the one deciding who to take care of.

And I had chosen to take care of me.