There are some days, she wishes she never found the note. She wishes she had walked by it, thought of a piece of trash, and threw it away. She keeps it with her, always tucked in her breast pocket, close to her heart. It’s pages have been folded over and over, the crease is beginning to break, the ink beginning to fade on the edges where her fingers have left their marked.

She can feel its words overtaking every moment of her life, every breath that she takes, every decision she makes, every moment when she says something, she never would’ve said before. The note has told her she doesn’t need to be silent. The note has told her that she is worth something. Before it, she was quiet, she was meek. She showed up, day-to-day, and did what needed to be done. She didn’t know that there was more, or if she did, she refused to admit it.

She doesn’t even know who left the note. She found it on her rounds, cleaning. Was it the woman in 2A? The one whose family never came, who spent all days alone, but seemed better for it. A woman at the end of her life, who finally found the peace she never had while she was living. Was it the young girl in 3B, who died fighting, gone too early from this world. A girl who laughed, loved, surrounded by those who helped her fight. A girl who never knew what life could be she doesn’t know. But she knows it was a woman. No man would write those words.

She looks at the note now, the words are printed on her memory, and much of part of her as the blood and her veins and the oxygen in her lungs. It is only 10 words, but there are 10 words that will change her world forever.

“In the end, there was only I. I was enough.”