The Lesson I’ll Hand You Without Apology
If you’ve built something—a home, a business, a life—there will be people who see it as inheritance waiting to be claimed, not a miracle forged from your spine.
Sometimes they arrive dressed as lovers. Sometimes as “helpers.” Sometimes as “family.”
Guarding what is yours is not bitterness.
It’s literacy about how the world works.
- Love deeply.
- Trust thoughtfully.
- Protect fiercely.
- And never apologize for safeguarding what your younger self nearly broke herself creating.
Because one quiet truth held close may be the difference between losing everything… and standing proudly in the place you refused to surrender.
And if you ever doubt it, remember this image:
A vineyard at dusk. Sun threading gold through rows of green.
A woman who refused to disappear.
I remarried at sixty.
They tried to erase me.
And I am still here.
Not as their victim.
As their reckoning.
And free.
