I had spent the first half of my life measuring my worth by the volume of the room’s response to me, and failing the measurement, because I was quiet and the quiet rarely wins the room.

It had taken losing nearly everything and rebuilding it on my own terms to understand that the measurement itself had been the error.

The applause was pleasant.

It was not the point, and it had never been the point, and the freedom of finally knowing the difference was worth more than any ovation a ballroom could produce.

Chapter 26 — Into a Future of My Own

People have asked me, since, how I think of what happened — whether I consider it a victory, whether I feel I won.