I only had to catch up to the part of me that already was.

I have come to believe that this is how most people actually leave the things that are hurting them, and that the stories we tell about it get it backwards.

We imagine leaving as a single dramatic act of courage — a woman who one day simply finds her strength and walks out the door.

But it almost never happens that way, and telling it that way does a quiet disservice to everyone still trapped, because it makes them feel that their failure to have that one heroic moment is a failure of character.

It is not.

The truth is slower and stranger and more merciful than that.