I left Arkansas without ceremony,
just a car heavy with breath and unfinished sentences.
The road taught me how borders work—
how one place loosens its grip
and another waits without promise.

State lines passed like quiet witnesses.
Nevada held me in its wide, unblinking stillness,
asked nothing, gave space.
Arizona burned the fog from my thinking.
Heat has a way of telling the truth.

Words held me when arms could not.
I stepped into a love story I wanted to claim,
let my hope touch the water before checking the depth.
For a while, it felt like mine.

Then it wasn’t.

Heartbreak came without drama,
just a sudden quiet where joy had lived.
I carried it through ordinary days—
doing dishes, answering emails,
pretending the world hadn’t shifted.
Healing was slow and unremarkable.
It arrived as steadiness.
As mornings that didn’t ache.

I tried again because I still believed in becoming.
I lost again because faith doesn’t guarantee safety.
But this time, I did not shrink.
I stayed present inside the ache.

Recognition came in classrooms and corridors,
my name spoken with respect,
my effort finally visible.
My mind felt clearer,
as if the noise had learned to sit down.
I found my place in health care
not by accident,
but by choosing it again and again.

Along came baby N.W—
newness incarnate.
I beheld him and let wonder be enough.
No future questions.
Just now.
Just breath.
Just this miracle insisting on joy.

I walked away from people who tried to rewrite me,
from spaces that demanded I become smaller, quieter, easier.
I kept my voice.
I kept my shape.
I kept myself.

This year did not crown me.
It carved me.
And still, I stand—
open, wiser, reaching.

If winning is surviving without hardening,
loving without disappearing,
beginning again without bitterness—
then yes,
this year taught me
at lest
twenty-five ways to say I win.