This Peace Cost Me

After work, I came home and sat on my balcony. The sky was beautiful, and I had one of those moments where I just looked around and thought, I really love my life.

Not because everything is perfect. But because I feel peaceful.

I spent 10 years in childcare, building a career and a business I once thought I would have forever. I am proud of that chapter and the woman who built it. But two months into my new career as a licensed therapist, I feel like I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

My days look different now.

I walk into my office, turn off the fluorescent lights, turn on my lamps and diffuser, and make the space feel like me. I get to wear my dresses and heels and show up feeling feminine and soft. I am learning new modalities, attending trainings, building my caseload, and having sessions that remind me why I chose this work.

My caseload is becoming full. A waiting list is beginning to form. I have a supervisor and clinical director who I genuinely appreciate. And every day, people trust me with parts of their lives that are deeply personal.

I do not take that lightly.

This is not my private practice, but I treat the work with that same level of care because it is an honor and a privilege to do what I do.

But when I say this peace cost me, I am not just talking about changing careers.

I had to do my own work too.

I had to learn how to set boundaries and actually keep them. I had to release people, expectations, and versions of myself that I had outgrown. I had to grow. I had to stop caring so much about things that were costing me too much of myself and become okay with the fact that not everyone would understand my choices.

I had to change the way I lived personally before I could sit across from someone else and truthfully encourage them to choose themselves, protect their peace, set the boundary, tolerate the discomfort, or make the hard change.

I do not want to give people advice from a place of theory.

I want the things I encourage in that room to also be things I am willing to practice in my own life.

And I am still practicing.

Still learning.

Still growing.

But now I understand that peace is not just something that happens to you when life finally gets easier. Sometimes peace is the result of decisions you make over and over again about what you will carry, what you will release, and what you will no longer allow to have unlimited access to you.

So when I came home that evening and sat on my balcony looking at the sky, I understood why that moment felt so good.

I had enough of myself left to enjoy it.

This peace cost me. I earned it. And I am going to keep doing the work required to protect it.