With awareness come responsibility and choice.

Friendships that don't fit my life anymore have faded away, and new ones have come in.

I have a general sense of excitement about the future, and I don't know what that looks like yet. But it will be whatever I make it.

After spending 460 days as a hostage, I did emerge a fundamentally changed person. But I think, like everyone does as they grow older and probably wiser, I can look back at my earlier life - my history, my mistakes, the joy I felt as a young woman traveling the world - with some objectivity and even some humor.

I made a vow to myself while I was a hostage that if I were lucky enough to live and to get out of Somalia, I would do something meaningful with my life - and specifically something that would be meaningful in the country where I'd lost my freedom.

The road to recovery will not always be easy, but I will take it one day at a time, focusing on the moments I've dreamed about for so long.