the ache is just the echo of what almost wasn't. The phantom limb of the life I almost built, the one where I stayed small, still twinges sometimes. I have to remind myself that fear of the unknown was never a good enough reason to stay put, even when the known was familiar and comfortable in its misery. Discomfort now is just the price of freedom. That hollow feeling, the one where you mourn a path not taken, can be a sneaky trap. It's so easy to romanticize the "what if" without remembering the reasons you chose a different door in the first place; usually those reasons were pretty solid. Sometimes I catch myself thinking about the safety of the shore, forgetting the particular kind of atrophy that sets in when you stay there too long. The ache of almost drowning is a small price to pay for the vastness I've found.