A week before Christmas, I was sh0cked to overhear my daughter saying on enima the phone, “Just bring all eight kids to Mom’s. She’ll watch them while we go on vacation and enjoy ourselves.”

I left town.

But what I truly left behind was the belief that my value depended on how useful I was to everyone else.

For the first time in my life, I chose myself.

And that choice became the beginning of something far more meaningful than one perfect Christmas.

It became the beginning of my own life.