Who’s That Girl?

Hiking the long way around
not because it’s easier,
the view hits different when you earn it in sweat equity.

She’s the girl with mud on her boots
and a quiet fire in her chest.
Gathering moments like a mountain stream gathers stones—
the smooth ones she keeps with gratitude,
the sharp ones she learns from,
the heavy ones she sets down in strength.

She’s grit and grace,
an ember that refuses to be extinguished,
a spark that smolders with the fierce truth that her worth has always been hers to define.

Her healing doesn’t move in straight lines.
It flares, it flickers, it rages.
It’s every emotion at once, then none at all.
A tide that rises without warning and pulls back just as suddenly.
Messy, silent, ugly, beautiful, and contradictory.

Nothing about it is linear.
Nothing about it is consistent.

It asks her only to show up as she is, where she is.
No judgment, just truth and a will to keep climbing. 

Some days, all she can offer the mountain is a single breath and a promise to keep striving.

She’s the one who wanders.
Wandering is how she finds her way back.
Back to her gift.
Back to her voice.
Back to the little girl inside with big dreams.

Somewhere on a switchback, with Chewy’s ears catching the wind, and the world stretched wide around her, she discovers...

The long way was the right way.
Wonder is waiting.