By Elizabeth Locke – 5/7/2025

There are spans of time I barely recognize anymore.
Whole years swallowed by silence, by aching nights and cold pillows soaked in tears. Years spent surviving. Numb. Alone. Forgotten even by myself.

Where did they go? Those years I gave away—too trusting, too wounded, too tired to ask for more.

I lived through the storm. Not with grace, but with grit. With bruised knees and a spine that refused to break. I held tight to that quiet fire in me, repeating the words I’d tattooed onto my soul: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

I was naïve. Starved of a mother’s warmth, shaped by pain and the long shadow of divorce. I sought love in places that didn’t know how to hold it. I made choices—some I can barely name without choking on regret. And yet, in the wreckage, miracles bloomed.

I was given four children—my heart in human form. The silver lining to every thundercloud. Without those choices, I wouldn’t know the kind of love that cracks you wide open just to pour more light in.

I walked through life half-guarded. Eyes open, heart hidden. Trust wasn’t easy—not after the damage. But God, in His mercy, still sent angels.
A handful of women who held my hand like sisters.
A mother who found me when mine was never truly there.
And another—my Mama Bear—who speaks life into my soul when I forget how to breathe.

She said to me one day, “No matter how many years were lost, make the next ones your best.”

That truth hit deep. It cracked me. I wept for the time that slipped through my fingers, for the things I never got to feel, the places I never saw.
But I only let myself grieve for a heartbeat.
Because staying there would chain me to the past—and I was finally ready to be free.

The moment I chose awareness over blame, healing over hiding, was the moment I began to truly live.
I stopped waiting to be rescued.
I became the woman I was always meant to be.

I leaned into self-love—not the cliché, but the radical act of believing I deserve joy. I faced the fear, the discomfort, the parts of me that had never seen the sun. I said yes to new beginnings, to unfamiliar places, to people who saw my light before I did.

It wasn’t easy. Growth never is.

But I had help.
I learned from souls like Sheneese Starr, who reminded me: “Get off the block.”
Take the step. Say yes. Move.

And in moving, I reclaimed myself.
Piece by piece. Day by day.

The world is wide. Vast. More beautiful than I ever allowed myself to imagine.
And what’s meant for me? It’s still mine. It was never lost—just waiting until I was ready.

I feel the rain now, and it no longer hurts. It cleanses.
I walk with a glow that comes from fire, not frost.

So to anyone counting the years they think they’ve wasted—stop.
You didn’t lose time.
You were becoming.

Forget the loss.
Feel the now.
Let your story be one of power, of rising, of choosing yourself every single day.

You deserve this life.
You deserve the glow.
So rise. And don’t look back.