08/05/2025
I’ve spent over a decade carrying a grief that doesn’t quite have a name.
Not the kind you can neatly explain.
Not the kind people understand unless they’ve worn it themselves.
It didn’t just visit and leave.
It moved in.
It unpacked its bags and rewired my entire life—
how I breathe, how I love,
how I move through the world with an ache in my chest that most can’t see.
Some nights, I sat alone, going over every moment like broken glass scattered across the floor.
Trying to make sense of it.
Trying to bleed a little less.
Trying to find peace in a story that still wakes me up at night.
Because the truth is—healing doesn’t always look like triumph.
Sometimes it just looks like survival.
Getting out of bed.
Washing the dishes.
Smiling when you feel like screaming.
Over time, the sharpness of it all dulled.
Grief faded to a low hum behind the noise of everyday life—kids laughing, bills piling up, errands to run.
But then, out of nowhere, someone who knew what I had endured, who had looked me in the eye while I cried, used my story like a weapon.
Mid-argument. Out of anger.
They threw my pain at me like it was a card to win the game.
Like it was just a clever insult.
Like it didn’t cost me everything to carry it this far.
It wasn’t just a cheap shot.
It was a betrayal.
It was disrespect dressed as “honesty.”
It was cruelty wrapped in the voice of someone I once trusted.
But what broke me wasn’t just the words.
It was what they reminded me of—
That I’m alone in this.
That I’m an orphan.
That if the world decides to come at me, no one’s going to step in and say, “Not her. Not this time.”
No one to stand in the gap.
No one to hold the line.
And that kind of loneliness… it doesn’t fade.
It lingers beneath everything, waiting for moments like this to rise back up.
It’s the ache of having no one to call when it all gets too heavy.
No voice on the other end saying, “I’ve got you.”
Just silence. Just me.
And I hate that it still hurts this much.
That a single moment can unravel so many years of trying to be okay.
Because I’ve fought so hard to hold myself together—
To carry my grief quietly, to survive with grace.
But sometimes grace breaks, too.