But I reclaimed my voice.

And I learned a thing I will never forget: that justice does not always give you back what was stolen from you.

Sometimes it simply ensures that the people who tried to destroy you no longer get to decide who you are.

And for me, in the end, that was more than enough.

I want to close on that idea, because it is the truest thing I know now, and it took nearly everything to learn it.

For most of my life, I had let my parents define me.