My journey through those five stages of grief weren't stops on some linear timeline like my treck west to Phoenix. But those two thousand miles in between had taught me a lot. Bridging the border into Arizona, I remembered one of my favorite quotes the poet Jenna Cecelia penned, "Healing isn't taking the fast lane down the highway. Healing is taking the back roads with potholes and dead ends." Grinning as I remembered it, I knew for my healing that I was going to need to stay present and take my life off cruise control. If I was going to rewrite my ending, then it would start by putting in the work. I knew true healing and transcendence would only come when I finally faced my painful stories and wrestled with what they had to teach me.

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