If you have built something—a business, a home, a life—there will be people who see it as an inheritance waiting to be claimed, rather than a miracle forged from your spine. Sometimes they will come dressed as lovers. Sometimes as helpers. Sometimes as family.
Guarding what is yours is not bitterness. It is literacy about the world.
Love deeply. Trust thoughtfully. But protect fiercely. And never apologize for safeguarding the empire your younger self nearly broke herself creating.
Because one quiet truth, held close to your chest, may be the difference between losing everything and standing proudly in the place you refused to surrender.
I remarried at sixty. They tried to erase me.
But I am still here. Not as their victim. As their reckoning.
And I am free.
Like and share this post if you believe in the power of resilience. Drop a comment below with “I am the fortress” if you made it to the end.
