Thoughts In Her Light

I am heading to Arizona for a wellness retreat, and I can’t help but think of you.

This is something you would have loved. You would have been the first person asking for pictures, wanting every detail, and telling me how proud you were that I went. Even in moments that should feel exciting, my mind still reaches for you first.

Lately, I’ve felt an overwhelming amount of pressure.

The pressure to act like I’m functioning. The pressure to hold myself together so everyone else stops worrying. The pressure to focus on my health, my future, and healing when the reality is that I am still trying to understand how to exist in a world without you.

The truth is, I’m not ready.

I’m not ready to be fully functioning. I’m not ready to be healed. I’m not ready to accept that this is my reality now.

Some days I feel terrified that there will always be a hole inside of me that can never be filled. That losing the person I loved most somehow permanently changed me. That the version of me that existed before January 26th is gone forever.

And maybe she is.

What scares me most is wondering if I will always feel broken.

Sometimes I catch myself searching for distractions. Looking for people, relationships, validation, or anything that can make me feel normal again, even if it’s only for a second. Addiction taught me that I have a tendency to look outside of myself for relief. Grief has exposed that tendency in entirely different ways.

I find myself attaching to comfort wherever I can find it.

Not because those people are responsible for saving me, but because for a moment they quiet the ache. For a moment, I don’t have to sit alone with the reality that you’re gone.

But comfort isn’t healing.

And lately I’ve realized that every time I lose myself in someone else, I drift further away from the person I’m trying to become.

The strange thing about grief is that it destroys you and rebuilds you at the same time.

I am not who I was before.

She doesn’t exist anymore.

But I don’t think that’s the end of the story.

I think there is a new version of me somewhere on the other side of this. A version that carries your love without being crushed by your absence. A version that can remember you and smile before she cries. A version that understands that healing isn’t letting go of you; it’s learning how to carry you differently.

I haven’t found her yet.

But I know she’s there.

For now, all I know is this:

I miss you.

I love you.

And while I know I will eventually learn how to move forward, I’m not ready to let you go.

Not yet. ❤️