I had a beautiful house. A showpiece, really. Fairly modest from the outside in a sweet suburban neighborhood, but after 14 months of nearly continuous deconstruction and reconstruction, it was breathtaking.

I also drove very nice cars, wore very nice clothes, and thought nothing of dropping $1000 on a fabulous purse or pair of shoes. My ‘friends’ called me fancy.

My husband and I both made a good living, and enjoyed the finer things. We stayed in the best hotels when we traveled, and frequently ate at the trendiest, most expensive restaurants. This was the period of my life we will call ‘the good life’.

Just less than 5 years ago I completed the final steps of disposing of this life. I walked away from the successful career, the dreadful marriage, the house, cars and all that stuff. Actually I didn’t walk away, I ran. For my life.

And thus begins the period of my life we will call ‘the great life’. It consisted of letting go of everything that gave me a (false) sense of security, opening my mouth and trusting what would come out. I became a single mother, an entrepreneur and a servant to my own heart. Others ideas and desires had ruled nearly every decision I had made up to that point. Looking good was everything, feeling good was negligible. No longer.

I hear the comments, even now, about how brave I was. But if you are backed up against the edge of a cliff and you jump, is that courage? It was my soul making a last ditch effort to offer me a life by making any other option completely intolerable. I think of that period of my life not so much as a time of thoughtfulness, analysis or intelligent decision-making. It felt more like the desperate act by someone about to be devoured by their own demons, once and for all. I just wanted to survive.

The frightened look in my daughter’s eyes as she saw a mother on the verge of breakdown became my focal point. I would not be the same mother I had, like a caged animal who had no other option but self-destruction. I would not live like so many around me, in not-so-quiet desperation. There was high likelihood that I would go down in the blazing flames of failure, but I would not go down in the cold frost of apathy.

The facts of my life began to look like a repeat of my 20s, twenty years later. In a small apartment, driving my cute hybrid, with significantly pared down expenses. There was the constant threat of not being able to pay the bills. There was the inability to relate to most of the people around me. There was the looming uncertainty about making the choices that were now mine to make. Which way should I go? Which option should I choose? Which action should I take?

These thoughts were my companions, when I couldn’t bear any others. I released my need to act like an extrovert and surrendered to my natural state as an introspective, quiet-loving, solitary girl. I stopped trying to be in charge of everybody else’s feelings, opinions and behaviors, and instead began to figure out my own. After nearly 40 years of living other people’s lives, I could hardly find my own.

To many this may not seem like the great life at all. Perhaps even a nightmare – to lose everything, to start over from scratch, to be alone. All I know is that I am saved. Even with all the uncertainty, the struggles, being faced with my own demons on a moment-by-moment basis. When I open my mouth, what comes out pleases me. When I stand in the world, the ground beneath me is solid. When I choose to be with others, I don’t have to wear 9 layers of falsity in the hope I will be loved. It’s a take-it-or-leave-it situation.

I am what I am and that’s all that I am. Maybe from the outside it looks like I am not any happier. But from the inside, it feels like I am living a completely different life. One in which I’ve traded in what sparkles for what shines, what brings pleasure for what feeds my soul. I sacrificed nearly everything for the shift that took me from the good life to the great life.

I heard recently that my beautiful house is in foreclosure, too much for the new owners to bear or carry. Part of me smiles at the thought that they also let themselves free. Life doesn’t have to be so heavy, so burdensome, so fraught. I exhale into the sweetness that my next breath will bring.