People ask when I found myself.

The truth is, I don't think I ever really lost myself. I just spent so many years giving pieces of me away that eventually I couldn't see what was left.

I spent years trying to be enough for everyone else. Hoping that if I loved a little harder, tried a little more or held on a little longer, people would stay.

Some did.

Some didn't.

For a long time I thought that was my fault.

This book has made me realise something I never expected. Every story I've written, every memory I've relived and every tear I've cried wasn't taking me backwards. It was bringing me home.

I can finally see the little girl who just wanted to be loved. The teenager who hid behind being tough. The woman who kept putting everyone else's needs before her own because that's what she thought love looked like.

I don't blame her anymore.

She was doing the best she could with what she knew.

Forgiveness was probably the hardest part.

I always thought forgiveness meant telling someone what they did was okay.

It doesn't.

It means I refuse to let what happened keep deciding who I become.

Some people may never apologise. Some people may never understand the hurt they caused. I can't control that anymore.

What I can control is what happens next.

I've learnt that peace doesn't come from getting the ending you hoped for. Sometimes it comes from accepting that not every chapter gets rewritten.

There are people I'll always love.

There are people I'll always miss.

There are people I had to let go, not because I stopped caring, but because I finally started caring about myself too.

For the first time in a very long time, I feel like I'm enough exactly as I am.

Not because someone else chose me.

Because I finally chose myself.

Maybe that's what Pieces of Me was always leading me towards.

Not finding someone else.

Finding me.

And if I've learnt anything, it's this...

No matter how many pieces life takes from you, they are never truly gone.

Sometimes they're just waiting patiently for you to come back and collect them.

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