Josephine stood at the edge of the water, looking out to nowhere.

Every time she was at the water’s edge, she let go of all her thoughts. My thoughts weren’t always positive; being by the water was like taking a deep breath and blowing away the negativity. The place that would make her feel better was the one place she hated as a kid. 

After she had let her negative thoughts in the water, she would return to the one place that made her feel the safest. After much resistance as a child, she realized she always belonged to the trees. She would sit in the middle of the trees and wonder what she would do next.

When she was at the water’s edge, it felt like she was cleaning her soul, but when she went to the forest, it felt like a rebirth, a chance to take a new direction in life. She sat at the edge of the woods on an old stump. She sat silently, hoping the tree would tell her what to do next.

Life has always been challenging for her, and she would add to those challenges by trying to live as if she didn’t have challenges to face. Her daydreams would cause her trouble. She would get it in her head that she might be able to act upon those daydreams; most of the time, the daydreams in her mind, she would try to make those dreams try, and sometimes they weren’t the best ideas. Trying to make those dreams come true would just add to her challenges. That’s when her life got more complicated. 

The life she had always dreamed of was, in some ways, impossible for her to achieve. When she was in the forest, the trees seemed to sate her realization of life. 

The difference between the trees’ wind and the water wave was like night and day to Josephine. She wanted to find a way to balance her dreams and reality. She discovered that she was in the element of her dreams and had no challenges, yet in truth, she had control over the one thing that made her different from the rest. 

What Josephine didn’t want to see was that the one thing that made her different from the others was the one thing that was her strength. Josephine struggled with her strength to push through anything in life. She just needed the courage to see that the difference between her and others was that she knew life would be a challenge, but she held the courage in her self-worth to make it happen despite her differences and challenges. It was in her nature to have the courage, determination, strength, and ability to overcome obstacles necessary to achieve in life to become successful and impact life positively and the world around her. 

Josephine never felt that way about her life, but others saw that in her. It took years for her to realize that about herself. When she realized her weakness was her strength, her life changed dramatically. For Josephine, life became less of a burden and more of a passion.