You are the author

If your life is a book, who’s writing the next chapter?

Not the ending. Let’s not even get to the ending. The next page. The next chapter. And then the one after that. Who’s holding the pen?

Here’s what I know. When I look back on my life, it really has been a book. Chapters. Some of them I’d never want to read again. A split home. Siblings I watched fight through addiction and mental health. Concrete and broken glass outside the door, not green grass. A lot of people from where I’m from never made it out of those chapters. I know a bunch of them by name.

But here’s the thing about chapters. They end. And a new one starts. And now that I know better, from the mistakes, from the failure, from the storms I paid attention in, I get to write the next chapters differently. I don’t have to repeat the old ones. I don’t have to let certain people in. I don’t have to go to certain places. I know the author better now than I ever have.

Your zip code is where you’re from. It’s a starting point. It is not your destination.

And your past does not have to define you. You are not your worst mistake. I’ll say it again because somebody needs to hear it twice. You are not your worst mistake.

That’s the work I care about most. Helping somebody build themselves back up after being down. Because if you don’t start there, everything else is hard. You need some armor. You need a toolbox. You need to believe the next page is yours to write.

So. Who’s writing the next chapter?

Pick up the pen.