🔁 Starting Over: A Sacred Act of Power, Not Failure

They don’t talk about how painful starting over can be.
They don’t talk about how holy it is either.

Sometimes it doesn’t look like courage.
It looks like sitting on the floor surrounded by bills and silence.
It looks like crying over meals you used to share.
It looks like filling out paperwork with shaky hands and no plan.

But this is what they miss:

Starting over is a sacred ritual.
A refusal to let destruction have the final word.
It is a declaration that you deserve more.

🧱 Woman to Woman: Starting Over Isn’t Failure — It’s Fire

You may have been taught that staying is strength.
That endurance is virtue.
That good women keep families, communities, churches, men together — no matter the cost.

But here’s the truth only free women know:
Sometimes the bravest thing a woman can do is walk away.
Not quietly. Not ashamed.
But in full possession of her power.

💔 Grieve It. Bless It. Leave It.

Start over with your head high — even if your heart is shattered.

• Mourn what you poured into someone who wasn’t ready.

• Bless the woman you were — she did the best she could with what she knew.

• Leave behind the lies that told you starting over was shameful.

You are not too late.
You are not too old.
You are not too broken.
You are right on time for your own life.

🧺 Starting Over, the Womanist Way

We don’t just leave.
We gather.
We wrap our lessons in cloth, carry our children, our stories, our spirit, and we build again.

We plant things that will outlive the pain.
We sew healing into every thread of our new life.
We call on ancestors and angels.
And we rise — not for show, not for revenge, but because we were never meant to stay buried.

🌿 Benediction for the Journey: On Starting Over

May you trust that starting over is not a sign of failure — it is proof of your refusal to settle for less than your full humanity.
May your grief be honored, but never mistaken for regret.
May your footsteps feel lighter with each day, your breath deeper, your spirit louder.
May you remember:
you come from a line of women who made a way out of no way —
and now, it’s your turn.