Chapter 3 | Entry Thirty-Two

"The light I'm carrying now came from tending to myself in his absence, but some part of me still wants to turn around and show him."

The music is playing, songs from one of my favorite playlists. Something with a beat that makes my hips sway without thinking. I'm getting ready for my friend's birthday at the wineries, with sunshine, live music, and laughter waiting for me.

I slip my dress over my shoulders, the fabric feels soft against my skin. I dance a little as I zip it up, spin in front of the mirror, to watch the way it moves with me.

And I catch myself.

I look radiant. Alive. My eyes are bright, my smile easy. There's a glow coming from somewhere deep inside me, something I didn't know I could hold.

I wonder what the sun would see in me now.

This didn't happen by accident.

I've bought dresses that make me feel beautiful when I put them on, that move with me instead of against me. I've filled my tub with bubbles and candles more times than I can count, stayed until the water went cold, let myself be held by the warmth even when no one else was there to hold me.

I've danced alone in my living room until my feet ached. Put on music that made my hips sway and remind me what it feels like to be alive in this body without needing it to be anything for anyone else.

I've brought my writing back. The journal that sat untouched for months, I opened it. Let the words spill out messy and raw and unfiltered. Wrote what I was feeling, what I was noticing, what I was learning about myself in all this quiet.

I've been choosing myself. One small ritual at a time.

This radiance I'm seeing in the mirror, it's the evidence. The proof that I didn't just survive these months. I lived them. I tended to myself. I didn't wait for someone to come back and make me feel beautiful again.

And last night, I lay in bed with that question sitting heavy on my chest: How am I going to give this to someone new?

I let myself imagine it. Really imagine it.

Him walking through my door and seeing me like this. The light in my eyes. The way I move through space now; grounded, sure, no longer apologizing for taking up room. The softness I've reclaimed. The feminine sparkle I'm no longer afraid of.

I pictured his face when he'd notice. That look he used to give me when I'd catch him off guard with my aliveness. The way his eyes would brighten. The way he'd reach for me without hesitation.

I imagined offering him this version of myself, the woman who dances in her kitchen and feels everything deeply, who stopped shrinking and started claiming her space. The woman who's finally ready to receive love, not just give it.

Would he see it? Would he know what it cost me to get here?

I think he would.

I think he'd see the confidence, the openness, the way I'm glowing from the inside out. And part of me, the part that still remembers his hands, his laugh, the way he made me feel seen, wants him to be the one to receive it.

Because he helped me find this. He opened me. Awakened something I didn't even know was sleeping. And my gratitude for that is so big, so tender, that it feels like he should be the one to witness what bloomed.

I stayed in that fantasy longer than I meant to, Let myself feel the pull of it. The desire. The genuine ache of wanting to share this beauty with the man who first saw it in me.

But then, slowly, the truth started to land.

Not with anger. Not with bitterness.

Just...clarity.

This morning, I made coffee. Stood at the window watching the sun rise, the light spilling gold across the floor.

And something shifted.

Not dramatically. Just...quietly.

The sun doesn't ask the moon for permission to shine. It just rises. It does what it's meant to do.

And when someone worthy shows up, he won't need convincing either.

He'll just see it. And stay.

—Still here, still mine, still whole