Commitment to being a High Value Woman has a hidden cost. And that hidden cost is grief and loss. As we make the transition out of our pickmeisha days, we grieve the endless wasted hours, days, YEARS we spent on LVM. We grieve the loss of the fairytale we were sold as children of Prince Charming sweeping us away if we were patient and compliant and perfect enough. We grieve the loss of the belief that most men are fundamentally good.

But willingly taking on that grief is proof of your strength and power. You have said that you would rather walk through those losses with your eyes wide open to the truth than slowly disintegrate over years of willful blindness to the abuse and neglect of LVM. It is a rare human being who can muster than kind of fortitude and courage, and you are one of them. Every time you block, cancel, delete, walk away, you are choosing the integrity of your soul over propping up destructive myths that give power to entitled men.

So today, on Thanksgiving, I am saying yes to that grief but also reframing it by giving thanks for the Things That Aren't. For as much as we have suffered, with every healthy choice we make we dodge one more bullet and take one more year off our sentence in Patriarchal Purgatory. For every dude who wasn't that into me, for every one who made disgusting jokes to my face, who ignored me when his friends showed up, who kept pushing sexually when I said no, who used his indifference as a weapon, who thought he was the prize and I was the desperate chump who had to prove myself worthy of him--I give thanks. Not for my suffering and not for his bad behavior, but for the POWER I am unlocking within myself as I process it and leave it all behind. And I give thanks for all of you who are walking with me down that difficult road that leads to a new and beautiful place.

You are worthy. You are powerful. You are strong.