Becoming Angelique: With Love to Who I Used to Be. She Got Me Here.

We were sitting across from each other at dinner in Florida, right in the heart of the town that holds so many versions of me. This is where I raised my daughter. Where I ended a marriage. Where I woke up. Where I started remembering who I truly was.

It holds memories of a woman I don’t talk about much anymore. The one who lost herself little by little trying to keep the peace. Who didn’t know how to ask for what she needed. Who let herself be shaped by other people’s versions of who she should be. It was, in every way, a lost and found story.

As I told Patrick pieces of that story, I watched him trying to picture it all. It was interesting to see, this man who loves me now, trying to imagine a version of me I don’t even recognize myself.

And it landed. It took a few quiet pauses, but something clicked. It was the first time in my life I was sitting across from something healthy. Healthy because I chose it. Because I did the work to get here. And what unfolded wasn’t judgment, but a kind of new awakening.

He didn’t shame my past, my choices, or my lack of boundaries. He saw the growth. The resilience. And he met it all with empathy and compassion. Because I’ve changed. Not just in the ways people can see, but in the quiet places only I would know. The way I speak to myself. The way I no longer abandon who I am just to be loved. The way I’ve learned to stand taller, not smaller.

There was a time I looked back at that old version of me with shame. Now, I see her with compassion. She was doing the best she could. And somewhere along the way, I stopped punishing her and started investing in the version of me I wanted to become.

I think that’s the part we don’t always recognize at first, what it really means to invest in a new version of ourselves. One that’s quietly had enough of who we used to be. Where the breakup with that past version is mostly amicable, a little rough around the edges, but grounded in the desire to make peace with it… so something better can begin to unfold within.

I didn’t get here all at once. It was slow. Uneven. Tender. And not always easy. The tears could’ve watered a garden, and the pruning of thorns was sometimes fierce. But it was mine.

And last night, sitting across from someone who only knows the version of me that’s steady, healed, and rooted in her worth, it felt like a quiet kind of full circle. And if I’m being honest, a bit surreal.

It’s a strange place to stand, to look back at your life and not recognize it anymore. It truly feels like chapters in a book you’ve carefully placed on a shelf. No bitterness. Just reverence for what it took to get here.

No big fireworks. Just love. And a deep, grateful breath. ❤️