grow through what you go through

I think it’s safe to say that if you’ve been following along with this little blog of mine, you know that my life has been anything but uneventful.

and quite frankly, I’m fucking exhausted.

I’ve spent a lot of time writing about heartbreak. about grief. about losing people I love, losing myself, finding myself, and then somehow having to do it all over again. I’ve written about relationships that nearly destroyed me, the people I’ve had to learn to live without, and the seemingly never-ending process of healing from things I never should have had to experience in the first place.

and if I’m being completely transparent, there have been plenty of times where I’ve wondered when the hell life was going to give me a break.

because seriously. what the fuck?

I think there’s something to be said about the people who have spent the majority of their lives in survival mode. the people who have experienced so much hurt that they don’t really know what to do when things are going well. the people who are constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, because historically speaking, it always has.

hi. it’s me. I’m people.

I’ve been in therapy for six years. SIX. YEARS.

six years of unpacking trauma, identifying patterns, learning boundaries, unlearning unhealthy behaviors, and trying to convince my brain that not everything is a threat. six years of sitting across from someone and talking about things that I would quite literally rather do anything else than talk about.

and don’t get me wrong, I love my therapist. she’s an absolute saint for dealing with me. but holy shit, healing is exhausting.

it’s not linear. it’s not pretty. and it’s certainly not as simple as deciding one day that you’re going to be okay.

sometimes healing looks like making progress. sometimes it looks like crying in your car. sometimes it looks like setting boundaries with people you love. and sometimes it looks like sitting in a therapy session realizing that something you thought you’d worked through is actually still very much there.

fun, right?

I’ve talked before about my previous relationships. about the emotional abuse, the manipulation, the screaming, the walking on eggshells. about the way I slowly became a version of myself that I didn’t recognize anymore.

I spent so much time trying to be enough for people who made me feel like I was simultaneously too much and not enough.

too emotional. too sensitive. too needy. too independent. too outspoken. too much of this, not enough of that.

and after a while, you start to believe it.

you start to believe that love is supposed to be difficult. that relationships require you to sacrifice parts of yourself. that if you could just be a little more patient, a little more understanding, a little less emotional, maybe things would finally be okay.

so you try harder.

you love harder.

you give more.

and eventually, you have absolutely nothing left to give.

I used to think that loving someone meant being willing to do whatever it took to make the relationship work. and while I still believe that love requires effort, I’ve learned that there’s a HUGE difference between working through life’s challenges together and constantly having to fight for someone to treat you with basic human decency.

love shouldn’t require you to abandon yourself.

and yet, for a very long time, that’s exactly what I did.

I’ve spent years trying to understand why I accepted the things I did. why I stayed in situations that were hurting me. why I could recognize unhealthy relationships from a mile away when they involved someone I loved, but somehow couldn’t recognize them when I was the one living in them.

and I think a lot of it comes down to what feels familiar.

when you’re accustomed to chaos, peace can feel uncomfortable.

when you’re used to inconsistency, stability can feel suspicious.

when you’ve spent years having to earn affection, being loved without conditions can feel almost impossible to comprehend.

and when you’ve been hurt enough times, you start to convince yourself that maybe this is just what love looks like for you.

maybe you’re just not someone who gets the easy kind of love.

maybe you’re always going to be the person who loves a little harder than they’re loved in return.

maybe you’re just supposed to be grateful for whatever pieces of affection someone is willing to give you.

and that is such a heartbreaking way to live.

because I have SO much love to give.

I always have.

I love my people loudly. I show up. I remember the little things. I celebrate their accomplishments, I sit with them through their heartbreaks, and I would do just about anything to make the people I care about feel loved.

and for the longest time, I couldn’t understand why that same kind of love seemed so difficult for someone to give me.

was I asking for too much?

was I expecting something unrealistic?

or had I just spent so much time accepting less than I deserved that I genuinely forgot what I was allowed to ask for?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

and then there’s grief.

good old grief.

if you’ve read my previous posts, you know that losing my dad fundamentally changed who I am as a person.

there’s a version of me that existed before he died, and there’s the version of me that has existed every day since.

I miss him in ways I don’t think I’ll ever be able to adequately explain. I miss his laugh. I miss his advice. I miss knowing that no matter what happened in my life, I had him.

and as the years have passed, I’ve learned that grief doesn’t necessarily get smaller. you just learn how to make room for it.

you learn how to celebrate birthdays without them. how to navigate holidays. how to experience milestones knowing that someone who should be standing next to you isn’t there.

you learn how to be happy and sad at the same time.

and just when I thought I had a pretty good understanding of what it meant to lose someone I loved, life decided to introduce me to an entirely different kind of grief.

in June, my girlfriend took her own life.

in our bedroom.

and I was the one who found her.

I’ve written about that day before, and I don’t think I need to go into every detail again. quite frankly, I relive enough of it in my own head.

but I don’t think there are words in the English language that could adequately describe what that experience does to a person.

there’s the grief of losing someone you love.

and then there’s the trauma of how you lost them.

and those are two very different things that somehow manage to exist in the exact same place.

there’s the sadness. the anger. the guilt. the confusion. the questions that will never have answers.

there’s the constant replaying of events, wondering what you could have done differently. there’s the overwhelming realization that your life has been divided into another before and after.

and then there’s the part that nobody really talks about.

the part where life just…keeps going.

people go to work. they go grocery shopping. they make dinner plans. they complain about traffic and the weather and whatever else people complain about.

and you’re standing there wondering how the fuck the world is still spinning when yours has completely stopped.

but eventually, you have to start living again.

not because you’re done grieving.

not because you’ve forgotten.

but because you’re still here.

and I think that has been one of the hardest things for me to accept.

that I am allowed to keep living.

I’m allowed to laugh. I’m allowed to go out with my friends. I’m allowed to enjoy the sunshine, drink coffee, play softball, dance in my kitchen, and have really, really good days.

I’m allowed to be happy.

and perhaps the hardest realization of all?

I’m allowed to be loved again.

I think there’s this misconception that after experiencing something traumatic, you’re supposed to take some predetermined amount of time to heal before you’re allowed to move forward.

as if grief comes with a calendar.

as if there’s some magical point where you wake up and say, okay! all done being traumatized! time to move on!

wouldn’t that be fucking convenient?

but that’s not how it works.

healing and grieving aren’t things you finish before you’re allowed to experience happiness.

they’re things you learn to carry while you continue living your life.

and after everything that happened, I genuinely didn’t know what that would look like for me.

I tried dating.

and let me tell you, dating in your thirties is already an absolute shitshow without having to explain that your previous partner died by suicide and you were the person who found her.

how exactly do you work that into a conversation?

what do you say when someone asks about your last relationship?

how do you explain that you’re capable of loving someone, that you’re emotionally available, that you’ve spent YEARS working on yourself, but that you’re also carrying an experience most people can’t even begin to comprehend?

because that’s the thing.

I’m not looking for someone to fix me.

I’m not looking for someone to save me.

I’m not looking for someone to take responsibility for the things that have happened to me.

I’ve spent six years doing the work to become the person I am today. I’ve fought like hell to get here.

I just wanted someone who could understand that my past is part of me without making it the entirety of who I am.

someone who wouldn’t see my trauma as baggage.

someone who wouldn’t make me feel like I was difficult to love because my life has been difficult.

someone who could recognize that I can be both incredibly strong and incredibly vulnerable.

someone who could love me on the good days, and still love me on the days when my brain decides to be an absolute asshole.

and for a while, I wasn’t sure that person existed.

until, very unexpectedly, he did.

and his name is Silas.

now, before anyone starts rolling their eyes because here I am writing another blog post about love, just hear me out.

because this one feels different.

and I know. I KNOW.

everyone says that when they meet someone new.

but I don’t mean different in the butterflies-in-your-stomach, can’t-stop-smiling-at-your-phone, everything-is-sunshine-and-rainbows kind of way.

although, for the record, there’s plenty of that too.

I mean different in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever experienced before.

it’s calm.

it’s consistent.

it’s gentle.

it’s safe.

and if you’ve never spent years living in a constant state of fight-or-flight, I don’t know if you’ll fully understand just how significant that is.

for so long, my nervous system has been conditioned to anticipate danger.

to analyze changes in someone’s tone. to recognize shifts in their mood. to overthink conversations. to wonder whether I’ve done something wrong. to prepare myself for conflict before there’s even a reason to believe conflict is coming.

I’ve spent so much of my life being hyperaware of everyone else’s emotions that I sometimes forget to acknowledge my own.

and then there’s Silas.

who makes me feel like I can finally put all of that down.

I don’t have to analyze every interaction.

I don’t have to wonder whether he likes me.

I don’t have to question his intentions or try to decipher what he means when he says something.

he tells me.

he shows me.

and then he continues showing me.

he’s thoughtful in ways that make me wonder how I ever convinced myself that the bare minimum was enough.

he remembers things. he pays attention. he makes an effort.

he’s the kind of person who sends me coffee at work just because he knows it would make my day better.

the kind of person who shows up with flowers, and then surprises me with more flowers just because.

the kind of person who makes time for me, who wants to see me, who tells me he misses me.

and I know those things might seem small.

but when you’ve spent years begging people to consider your feelings, those little things don’t feel little at all.

they feel like everything.

he’s funny. genuinely, ridiculously funny.

he makes me laugh in ways that I didn’t realize I’d been missing.

he’s compassionate. he’s patient. he’s affectionate. he’s thoughtful.

and he’s so unapologetically himself.

he has this way of making the ordinary parts of life feel like something worth looking forward to.

and perhaps my favorite thing about him is that I never have to wonder whether he loves me.

because he does.

fiercely.

openly.

intentionally.

and for the first time in my life, I don’t feel like I have to convince someone that I’m worth loving.

I don’t feel like I have to perform.

I don’t feel like I have to make myself smaller, quieter, easier, or less complicated.

I can just be me.

the girl who talks too much. who loves her pets like they’re actual children. who has a million thoughts running through her head at any given moment. who loves her friends with everything she has. who has a slightly inappropriate sense of humor and a tendency to overthink just about everything.

the girl who has experienced some really horrible things.

the girl who is still healing.

the girl who sometimes needs reassurance, not because she doesn’t trust the person she’s with, but because she’s spent so much of her life being taught that love can disappear without warning.

and he doesn’t make me feel ashamed of any of it.

he doesn’t make me feel like my feelings are an inconvenience.

he doesn’t make me feel like my past makes me less deserving of a future.

he just loves me.

and holy shit, what a feeling that is.

I think one of the biggest things I’ve learned through therapy is that there’s a difference between feeling excited about someone and feeling safe with someone.

for a long time, I confused intensity with intimacy.

I thought the emotional highs and lows were a sign of passion. that the constant uncertainty meant I really cared. that the overwhelming relief I felt when things were good meant the relationship was worth fighting for.

but what I didn’t realize was that I wasn’t always experiencing butterflies.

sometimes I was experiencing anxiety.

sometimes that racing heart wasn’t excitement.

sometimes it was my body telling me that something wasn’t right.

and when you’ve lived that way for long enough, you start to associate love with the feeling of constantly being on edge.

so imagine my surprise when I met someone who made me feel the exact opposite.

someone whose presence doesn’t make my heart race out of fear, but makes my entire body relax.

someone I can sit next to in complete silence and still feel completely connected to.

someone who makes me feel secure without having to constantly ask for reassurance.

someone who doesn’t make me question whether I’m wanted.

I am.

and I know I am.

there’s something almost indescribable about being loved by someone who brings peace into a life that has known so much chaos.

it’s like coming home after the longest, hardest day of your life, taking off your shoes, sitting down, and finally being able to exhale.

except the day has lasted years.

and for the first time, you’re not bracing yourself for what comes next.

you’re just…there.

present.

comfortable.

happy.

and I think that’s what I’ve been waiting for.

not some grand romantic gesture. not some fairytale relationship where everything is perfect and nobody ever disagrees.

just someone who makes love feel safe.

someone who understands that relationships aren’t always easy, but that loving each other shouldn’t be the hard part.

someone who chooses me, even when life is complicated.

especially when life is complicated.

because here’s the thing about Silas.

he didn’t meet some perfectly healed version of me.

he met me in the middle of one of the most difficult chapters of my life.

he met someone who was still grieving. someone who was still trying to understand how her entire world could change in a matter of seconds. someone who was learning how to feel joy again without immediately feeling guilty about it.

and he didn’t run away from that.

he didn’t ask me to pretend it never happened.

he didn’t make me feel like I needed to rush through my grief to make room for him.

he simply made room for all of me.

and I don’t think he’ll ever fully understand what that means to me.

because after years of feeling like my emotions were too much, being loved by someone who doesn’t treat them that way is something I don’t think I’ll ever take for granted.

I can talk about my dad.

I can talk about my grief.

I can talk about the things that still scare me, the things that still hurt, and the things I’m still trying to understand.

and I can also talk about how happy I am.

how excited I am about life.

how much I love the person I’m becoming.

and how much I love him.

all of those things can exist together.

I think that’s something I really want people to understand.

finding happiness after trauma doesn’t mean the trauma wasn’t significant.

falling in love after loss doesn’t mean the person you lost mattered any less.

and moving forward doesn’t mean leaving every piece of your past behind.

it means allowing yourself to experience the life that’s still happening in front of you.

and that’s what I’m trying to do.

I’m trying to stop feeling guilty for being happy.

I’m trying to stop anticipating the worst simply because I’ve experienced it before.

I’m trying to remind myself that the things that happened to me are not predictions of the things that will happen to me.

and most importantly, I’m trying to let myself be loved.

really, truly loved.

without questioning it.

without trying to earn it.

without waiting for it to disappear.

and I won’t pretend that I have it all figured out.

I don’t.

there are still hard days. there are still memories that catch me off guard. there are still moments when my brain tries to convince me that something this good couldn’t possibly be real.

but the difference now is that I’m learning not to let those fears make decisions for me.

I’m learning that I can acknowledge the things I’ve been through without allowing them to dictate what I deserve.

because I deserve this.

I deserve the flowers.

I deserve the coffee.

I deserve the good morning texts, the forehead kisses, the laughter, the reassurance, the consistency.

I deserve someone who is excited to see me.

someone who is proud to love me.

someone who makes me feel like I’m not just an option, or a convenience, or someone to fill an empty space in their life.

I deserve to be chosen.

and not because I’ve survived horrible things.

not because I’ve spent years in therapy.

not because I’ve somehow earned the right to be treated well through all the pain I’ve experienced.

I deserve those things simply because I am a person who is worthy of love.

I always was.

even when I didn’t believe it.

even when other people made me question it.

even when I was accepting things that I would never, in a million years, want someone I love to accept.

I was always worthy of the kind of love I give so freely to everyone else.

and maybe that’s the biggest lesson in all of this.

that I didn’t have to become someone different to deserve better.

I just had to stop believing that less was all I could have.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how I wanted this post to end.

because truthfully, I don’t know how to wrap up something that feels this significant.

how do you explain what it means to finally feel safe after spending so much of your life afraid?

how do you explain the relief of being loved gently when you’ve spent years being hurt by people who claimed to love you?

how do you put into words the feeling of realizing that maybe, just maybe, life doesn’t always have to be so fucking hard?

I don’t know.

but I do know this.

I used to think that if I could just get through the next difficult thing, everything would finally be okay.

if I could survive losing my dad.

if I could leave the unhealthy relationship.

if I could rebuild my confidence.

if I could heal from the trauma.

if I could survive the grief.

if I could just make it to the other side of whatever horrible thing life decided to throw at me next.

then maybe I’d finally get to be happy.

but life doesn’t work that way.

there isn’t some magical finish line where all of the hard things stop happening.

there isn’t a point where grief disappears, trauma becomes irrelevant, and everything suddenly makes sense.

sometimes life is beautiful and devastating at the exact same time.

sometimes you’re grieving someone you lost while falling in love with someone new.

sometimes you’re still learning how to survive something while simultaneously experiencing some of the happiest moments of your life.

and sometimes, after years of believing that love was supposed to hurt, someone comes along and shows you that it doesn’t have to.

I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason.

I don’t believe I needed to experience abuse to appreciate kindness.

I don’t believe I needed to lose people I love to understand the importance of loving the people who are still here.

and I certainly don’t believe that any of the horrible things I’ve experienced were necessary for me to find happiness.

I would give anything to have my dad back.

I would give anything to erase the trauma of that day in June.

I would give anything to go back and tell the younger versions of myself that they didn’t have to tolerate the things they did.

but I can’t.

what I can do is continue building a life that feels good to live.

I can keep showing up for myself.

I can keep going to therapy, setting boundaries, loving my people, and finding joy in the little things.

I can let the past be part of my story without allowing it to write every chapter that comes next.

and I can love Silas.

not because he saved me.

because he didn’t.

I saved myself, over and over and over again.

I picked myself up off the floor. I made the appointments. I had the uncomfortable conversations. I walked away from people I loved because staying meant losing myself. I survived days I genuinely didn’t know how I was going to get through.

I did that.

and I’m really fucking proud of myself for it.

but after spending so much of my life having to be strong, there’s something incredibly beautiful about being with someone who makes me feel like I don’t always have to be.

someone who reminds me that I can be independent and still let someone take care of me.

that I can be strong and still need a little extra love sometimes.

that I can have a complicated past and still deserve a beautiful future.

Silas is not the reason I’m whole.

but he is showing me what it feels like to be loved without having to break myself into pieces.

and I think that’s the part that gets me.

because for so long, I thought love was something I had to fight to keep.

and now, for the first time, it feels like something I can simply allow myself to have.

I don’t know what the future holds.

none of us do.

and if my life has taught me anything, it’s that things can change in an instant.

but for once, I don’t want to spend all of my time worrying about what could go wrong.

I want to be here.

I want to enjoy the ordinary moments. the laughter. the quiet mornings. the flowers on the counter. the coffee. the conversations about absolutely nothing.

I want to enjoy loving someone who loves me back just as fiercely.

I want to stop looking over my shoulder for the next storm and start appreciating the sunshine that’s finally found its way into my life.

because after everything, I think I’ve earned the right to enjoy a little peace.

and maybe that’s what this chapter is really about.

not finding someone who makes all the bad things disappear.

not forgetting everything I’ve survived.

not pretending that the grief, the trauma, and the heartbreak don’t still exist.

but realizing that they don’t have to be the only things that exist.

there can be love, too.

there can be laughter.

there can be safety.

there can be happiness.

there can be a future that I’m genuinely excited to experience.

and there can be someone who makes the world feel a little softer, even when it hasn’t always been kind.

for years, I’ve been holding my breath.

waiting for the next argument. the next heartbreak. the next phone call that changes everything. the next moment where the ground gets ripped out from underneath me.

waiting for something to go wrong.

waiting for the other shoe to drop.

waiting for life to hurt again.

and then, somewhere in the middle of all the chaos, there was Silas.

with his flowers, his ridiculous sense of humor, his thoughtfulness, and this beautiful way of loving me that doesn’t ask me to be anything other than exactly who I am.

he didn’t come into my life and make everything better.

he came into my life and reminded me that beautiful things can still happen, even after the worst things imaginable.

that love can be gentle.

that peace can feel exciting.

that being safe with someone can be just as extraordinary as falling in love with them.

and that maybe the greatest kind of love isn’t the kind that takes your breath away.

maybe it’s the kind that finally gives it back.

and after everything, I can finally breathe.