Brave.

Five Minute Friday (done on a Monday) from Lisa-Jo Baker's blog. This is an awesome way to shake the cobwebs out and write. You have five minutes to write on the topic selected. GO!

Brave.

You never really know you have it in you to be brave until that moment arrives when brave is really the only option. Courage is much the same.

I've been told how brave I am for having come through what I have come through in my life, but really, I did what had to be done in order to move my life forward. There was a moment in each of those instances when I could have chosen to keep the status quo, but instead, chose the only realistic option for me: be brave.

During those days, when I lived in darkness, the very act of getting up out of bed and facing the day was, to me, an act of great courage. You don't have to already have brave as a default setting in order to be brave. Brave is what happens in the moment you need it.

I wouldn't call myself brave. And other women, like Julie who ended up tetraplegic and abandoned by her boyfriend after a motorcycle accident, won't call themselves brave either. It's as though the truly brave women I know keep silent about their courage. And we are all silently courageous. We don't realise it or admit it, but it is there. Every day.

STOP. Your turn.