She Rose Anyway: A Self-Reckoning

What rises when a woman stops disappearing and begins to remember her own name.

She doesn’t rise from softness — she rises from memory, moss, and myth.

The First Mirror

I don’t always recognize the woman staring back at me.
There are so many layers now—so many scars.
Have they distorted her?
Or carved her into something truer?

Some say she’s too quiet.
Some say she’s too much.
I say—she’s just tired.
Tired of shrinking.
Tired of surviving.
Tired of giving breath to what never grew her.

She is not bitter.
She is becoming.

The Girl With Wild Curls

Where did that island girl go?
The barefoot one with wild curls and louder laughter.
She ran toward the world with open arms—
until the world shattered her dreams at fourteen.

Did she die too?
Or is she still somewhere inside,
humming lullabies to the woman I’ve become?

The One Who Held Too Much Heat

And what of the angry one?
The girl who burned too hot to hold.
Reckless, yes—
but grieving too.
Lonely in a room full of people.
Searching for something that didn’t wound.

I don’t miss her.
But I honor her.
She taught me how to scream
before I learned how to speak.

The Mother Who Carried

Then came the mother.
Twenty years old, belly full of fear and hope.
She carried the shame of the girl before her—
but she also carried life.

She learned to give.
To fight.
To rise before dawn
and still dream at night.
She grew up fast,
but she never stopped growing.

The Keeper of Illusions

Then she became the wife.
The master of illusion.
She wore smiles like armor.
Called her pain “loyalty.”
Called her silence “love.”

But her children saw through it.
Her son’s rage.
Her daughter’s shrinking.
Mirrors she could no longer ignore.

That was the breaking.
That was the beginning.

The Warrior She Became

Then she became the divorcee.
The warrior.
The woman who no longer begged to be chosen.
She chose herself.

She grew new wings—
not soft ones,
but wings made of ash and iron and memory.
She learned to fly with fire that steadied
instead of scorched.

The Woman Stitched From Every Version

So who is she now?

She is a mosaic.
A myth.
A woman stitched together
by every version of herself.
Still learning.
Still softening.
Still rising—
but with a steadier spine.

And in the mirror,
Elowen stands behind her—
not as a ghost,
but as a guide.

The Promise Ahead

She sees the horizon now.
Not as a threat,
but as a promise.

She is not defined by what broke her.
She wears what she rebuilt
like a crown she forged herself.

She is not afraid of the unknown.
She is the unknown—
wild, sacred, unrepeatable.

She is ready to rise
in the way only a woman rebuilt by memory can.

“She rose not from ashes—but from memory, moss, and myth.”
—Elowen

@notesformysoulmate

This work is protected—not to guard the rise, but to honor the storm, the softness, and the self who dared to stand tall.
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If you’re ready for the next step in her becoming, the next doorway waits here:

The Princess and Her Sword

The moment she stops waiting to be saved — and chooses herself instead.

If this piece stayed with you, you can find more of my writing on Medium — where I share work that’s less lyrical and more conversational.
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