Influences acknowledged. Priorities reinforced. Snakeskin shed. All these fancy ways to describe this feeling of relief, patience fulfilled and anxiousness quelled, like when a scab falls off for the last time, revealing new pink skin beneath.

Which could very well turn into a pale shining scar every bit as conspicuous as it was before the last letter of its name changed.

Should I be ashamed to say that I’d wear it with pride? I hope to find that shame is something I can willfully refuse to feel, at least in this instance.

For all the times I’ve ever set my heart to feeling what I thought I ought to – I’m forgiven, and freed of that mindset forevermore.

What’s there instead is just being me, just how that feels, however that may be, wherever I am and go and intend to, whatever I do, for any old reason or none at all – and that is, at long last, enough.