Sarah Palin has faced failed elections, a devastating lawsuit that dragged on for nearly nine years and a public life that went from the highest highs to some of the most brutal lows anyone in American politics has ever experienced. Through all of it she never once asked for sympathy — she just kept going. And the woman the world is seeing now at 62 is someone who looks lighter, freer and more at peace than she has in years — as if everything she lost along the way turned out to be exactly what she needed to let go of.