The Hard Way Home

There are lessons that only the long road will teach you. The kind of wisdom etched into the soles of your feet after miles walked barefoot across broken things—love, loss, the sharp edges of your own stubborn hope. People will tell you there's an easier way. A shortcut. A backdoor into becoming. But the truth is, for some of us, the only path forward is through the fire.

I’ve never been one for ease. Not because I enjoy pain—but because, somewhere deep in my marrow, I know I don’t trust what hasn’t been earned. I don’t believe in answers handed over without effort, in comfort that comes without cost. I’ve learned that the easy way often comes with invisible strings. And I’m no marionette.

The hard way isn’t glamorous. It doesn’t come with applause. It shows up uninvited—when the floor caves in beneath you, when someone you love dies without warning, when your knees hit the ground not in prayer, but in surrender. It’s missed opportunities, gut-wrenching decisions, and the kind of heartbreak that leaves you cracked open in places you didn’t know could split.

But there’s an alchemy in that kind of ache.

Because somewhere between the shattering and the stitching, you begin to understand that the hard way isn’t punishment—it’s proof. That you were there. That you endured. That you said, Yes, I’ll keep going, even when the world handed you every reason not to.

The hard way leaves marks. Blisters. Stretch. Scar tissue and strength you can’t photograph, only feel. It carves you into someone different—someone deeper. Someone more tender and more terrifying in equal measure. The hard way will humble you. It will make you cry in grocery store aisles and laugh at the sky like a lunatic. But it will also give you a voice that’s impossible to silence. A backbone built from grit and memory. A soul that knows the value of still being here.

Sometimes, the hard way is the only way to live. Because the easy way doesn’t teach you how to fight. How to rise. How to love with your whole chest, even when you’re afraid. The easy way doesn’t teach you who you are when everything falls apart. It doesn’t offer you the miracle of your own resilience.

And yes, sometimes I resent it. I get tired of clawing my way forward when others seem to glide. I get angry at the universe for making me prove myself over and over again. But then I remember: soft things don’t survive storms unless they’re wrapped around something solid.

And I am solid.

I am the kind of woman who builds her life from the wreckage. Who takes the long road, not because it’s noble, but because I know there’s something waiting for me at the end of it that cannot be found anywhere else. Not ease. Not perfection. But meaning. Depth. Truth.

So let the world call it the hard way.

I’ll call it mine.