My thoughts, shaped by her light…
I am writing this today as a grieving daughter; full of questions, feelings, and thoughts I never expected to carry.
This morning, I woke up and started rereading old text messages between me and my mom, the ones from before she was diagnosed with the cruel force field that cancer became in our lives. I found myself laughing at some of them and then immediately wanting to cringe at myself for all the times I complained to her about things that now feel so small. As a mom, she probably loved that I came to her for literally everything (even when it was something as simple as how to tie my damn shoe). At the time, those inconveniences felt overwhelming. Now, sitting with the weight of her absence, they feel almost unrecognizable.
As I sat there grieving her, I had an epiphany that stopped me in my tracks: Why do we live like time is guaranteed? Why do minor stressors feel like the end of the world before we lose someone we love? Why do we take moments with our loved ones for granted, even though some part of us knows they will not last forever? And how do we change the way we perceive time and life before loss, not only after?
This reflection is not about regret. It is about curiosity- about why we believe time is promised until tragedy proves otherwise. Today, I realized on a deeper level that time is not, and has never been, guaranteed.
What I keep coming back to is this: when it comes to pain, loss, and the biggest questions in life, we often hear the same responses over and over again- nobody knows why, there are no answers, it’s just how life is. And while those phrases may be true, they often feel empty. They close the conversation instead of opening it. They leave so many of us sitting alone with thoughts we don’t know what to do with, wondering if something is wrong with us for wanting to understand more.
This is why I want to create this blog.
Not to give answers, and not to tell anyone how to heal. This isn’t therapy. It’s a space to talk about the thoughts we all have but rarely say out loud; the why’s we carry quietly, the questions that surface in grief, anxiety, love, and everyday life. The questions that don’t mean we’re broken, but human.
This way of thinking is deeply influenced by my mom. She was an incredible therapist, but more than that, she taught me how powerful awareness and curiosity can be. She believed that understanding ourselves; why we feel the way we do, why our minds work the way they do- can bring comfort all on its own. She didn’t rush people to conclusions or dismiss their questions. She sat with them. She made space. She helped people feel less alone in what they were experiencing.
In honoring her, I want this blog to blend personal experience with psychology in a way that feels relatable and grounding. A place to explore why we live like time is guaranteed, why small stressors can feel so heavy before loss, and how remembering that time is not promised can change the way we live; before tragedy forces that awareness on us.
If this space does anything, I hope it helps people feel less alone in the thoughts they have, more connected in their humanity, and more intentional with the moments they’re living right now. Because time isn’t guaranteed; but connection, curiosity, and presence are things we can choose.
Why Do Minor Stressors Feel So Big Before We Lose Someone?
When our sense of safety has not yet been disrupted, our emotional energy has nowhere else to reorganize itself. Psychology suggests that it often takes a major rupture, such as loss or trauma to recalibrate our internal sense of what truly matters. Before that recalibration occurs, everyday frustrations can feel overwhelming because nothing has yet challenged our assumptions about permanence, predictability, and control. When life still feels stable, small stressors naturally take center stage.
Looking back, the things I once complained to my mom about feel almost embarrassing now, but I say that without regret. At the time, I truly believed we had all the time in the world. I had heard stories of people losing loved ones, and while they deeply saddened me, they never felt personal enough to disrupt my sense of safety. Even when tragedy touched people close to us, my brain still operated under the assumption that my life was predictable; that my mom would always be there for late-night phone calls, for helping me clean up my messes, for my wedding day, for watching me grow in my profession, for babysitting my kids one day. Time felt guaranteed because it always had been.
When my mom was diagnosed with cancer, my heart broke; but even then, I continued to rely on her to be my mom. I leaned on her for reassurance, guidance, and comfort, just as I always had. I still called her when I didn’t know what to do. I still needed her steadiness. Psychologically, this reliance makes sense. Attachment research tells us that when someone has long been a source of safety, the brain continues to reach for them during times of stress, even when circumstances change. So even in illness, my mind clung to the version of her that had always held me together.
This is my mom. There’s no way she can’t beat this. So many women get breast cancer, she’ll be fine. A few rounds of chemo, losing her womanhood, and then life will move on. Even as the cancer spread through her bones like a vine that refused to stop growing, I still believed she would be okay. Not because I didn’t understand death was possible, but because my brain could not yet reconcile it as real.
I wasn’t in denial; I was protected. I knew, intellectually, that she could die. But emotionally, my brain told me she wouldn’t. She never had before. She was my mom. And until loss forced a recalibration, time continued to feel promised.
So Why Do We Live Like Time Is Guaranteed?
Psychology suggests that we live this way not because we are careless, but because our minds are protective. Humans are one of the few species aware of our own mortality, and carrying that awareness constantly would be overwhelming. To cope, the brain keeps the reality of death and loss at a distance, allowing us to function, plan, and move through daily life without being consumed by fear. Time feels abundant because, on a psychological level, it has to. This distancing isn’t denial, it’s survival.
Understanding this has helped me soften the way I judge my past self. I wasn’t living ungratefully; I was living as a human whose brain was doing exactly what it was designed to do.
At the same time, there is a part of me that questions this protective ignorance. I agree that if we lived in constant fear of time ending with our loved ones, we would miss the very moments we’re trying to protect.
But I also wonder if living as though time is guaranteed can become its own form of avoidance. I think what we need is balance. To live fully, we must allow ourselves some awareness that time is not promised, even if psychology tells us that holding this truth constantly would be overwhelming.
While our minds protect us from the weight of mortality, I fear the opposite extreme- that living as if time is guaranteed keeps us from facing the one thing that truly is. And as uncomfortable as it sounds, it’s true: the only certainty we have is that we will all die. What we do get to choose is whether we live with the awareness that time is fragile, or whether we continue to assume we have more of it than we do.
Why Do We Take Time With Loved Ones for Granted?
We don’t take people for granted because we don’t love them. We take them for granted because familiarity creates a sense of permanence. Psychology tells us that our brains build routines around the presence of those we depend on emotionally, and those routines quietly assume continuity. Some part of us knows that nothing lasts forever, but that knowledge stays abstract- until loss makes it painfully real.
Grief breaks that familiarity open. Moments that once felt ordinary suddenly feel sacred. Conversations replay. Silence grows louder. What once lived in the background becomes everything. This is what makes me question how much of our lives are shaped by the belief that time is guaranteed- not because it’s wrong, but because it’s what our minds lead us to believe in order to function.
I don’t think living this way is a failure. But I do believe that acknowledging time is not guaranteed will allow me to live more freely. It will change how I show up in the small, everyday moments. It will make me appreciate my grandparents calling early in the morning to ask what I’m doing, even when it wakes me up at the crack of dawn. It will help me hold onto the “annoying” conversations with my dad about saving money for the future. It will remind me to check in on my sister instead of assuming she’s always strong. It will encourage me to answer the phone when my uncle calls for the fourth time to tell me something ridiculous, and to hear it through love instead of avoidance.
Living this way isn’t about fearing death. It’s about appreciating life. It’s about recognizing that time isn’t promised and choosing to meet it with presence, patience, and gratitude while it’s still here.
How Do We Change the Way We Live Before Loss?
This is the question I keep returning to- not because I have an answer, but because I believe curiosity itself is the beginning of change.
Research on meaning-making suggests that after loss, many people naturally reorganize their priorities and values. What’s less talked about is that awareness doesn’t have to come only through tragedy. We can gently practice it through intention- through slowing down, questioning urgency, and noticing where our energy goes and whether it aligns with what actually matters.
For me, this will look like choosing presence over productivity when I can, saying things sooner instead of later, and allowing moments with people I love to feel important instead of assumed. Not perfectly, but intentionally.
Turning Curiosity Into a Way of Living
I don’t believe the goal is to live in constant awareness of loss. That isn’t peace, it’s anxiety. But I do believe there is something powerful about letting curiosity interrupt autopilot. When we stop brushing off our questions with “that’s just life” and instead ask why, we begin to live more consciously.
Time was never guaranteed. Grief just made that impossible to ignore. What I’m learning now is that awareness doesn’t have to come from pain alone; it can come from curiosity, reflection, and a willingness to live awake while time is still here.
These aren’t questions meant to be solved or rushed toward answers. They are questions meant to be lived with; questions that invite us to slow down, to notice what we usually move past, and to treat time, connection, and presence with more care.
Grief may be what first brought these questions into focus for me, but curiosity is what keeps them alive. And if this space does anything, I hope it reminds us that we don’t have to wait for loss to live with intention. We can choose awareness now. We can choose meaning now. We can choose to live awake while time is still here.
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