I Found Myself Before I Found Love

Mae has built a life that looks fine from the outside.
She is dependable, capable, and steady-the person others rely on. But beneath the surface, she has spent years quietly negotiating herself into smaller and smaller spaces, mistaking endurance for love and survival for strength.
When she finally leaves a relationship that has required her to disappear, Mae is forced to confront a question she’s avoided for far too long: Who am I when I stop being everything for everyone else?
Alone for the first time in years, Mae begins the difficult work of unlearning the beliefs that once kept her safe. Through silence, friendship, and self-reclamation, she learns to trust herself again-not perfectly, but honestly. And when she meets a love that offers calm instead of chaos, Mae must decide whether she can accept a relationship that asks nothing of her except presence.
I Found Myself Before I Found Love is a quietly powerful novel about survival, self-achievement, and emotionally mature love. It is a story for anyone who has ever endured quietly, questioned their worth, or wondered whether choosing themselves was allowed.