Refusing to settle

"I'm not like them," she would think with a hint of resignation. She wasn’t wired to be one of the settlers. "I can‘t take the easy path life offers me," she would say, "I want to feel alive." She was different, destined for something greater, something more.

She made bold moves. She quit her vanilla job. She politely declined offers to date 'good enough.' She went after the absolute best – a noteworthy career, a love story straight out of a Disney fairy tale, and a life worth documenting.

But this path came with sacrifices. Personal relationships frayed under the weight of her unyielding schedule. Moments of quiet reflection became luxuries she could no longer afford. The thought of starting a family, once a cherished dream, was pushed aside in wait for Prince Charming.

It is too late to turn back now, the bridges to her other life burned in the quest for more. She keeps fighting, driven by the momentum of her own choices, but in quiet moments, doubt creeps in. She wonders if there might have been an easier path, a life where she wasn't proving something to the world. A life where she was more like them.