A real sisterhood is a room — virtual or physical — where you can say "I am not okay" and be met with presence. Where your mess is not a reason to be excluded but a reason to be pulled in closer. Where women do not compete with each other because they understand that when one of them rises, there is more light for all of them.

He didn't just take years. He took pieces. Little ones, quietly, over time. The way I used to laugh without checking if it was too loud. The way I used to take up space without apologizing for it. The way I used to know — deep in my bones — that I was worth something.

I had to rebuild all of that from scratch. And I had to do it in a plus-size body that the world had already been telling its own story about long before he ever opened his mouth.

You are not too much. You have just been in the wrong rooms.