Healing In Pieces

It’s not the name I was born with, but it’s the one I chose.

The one that holds both my softness and my edge.

The one that fits the girl I became after the damage.

The one I wear like armor when I finally decide to speak.

Because this time, I’m telling the truth.

Not the watered-down version.

Not the one that makes other people comfortable.

I’m not writing this because I’m healed.

I’m writing it because I’m still hurting.

Because I’ve carried these memories in silence for too long and they’re getting too heavy.

This isn’t a story with a neat ending.

There’s no tidy conclusion or perfect recovery here.

Just the honest, messy middle.

The part nobody talks about.

The part where you’re still trying to make sense of everything while pretending you’re fine.

Most of my life, I’ve kept quiet.

Not because I wanted to, but because it felt safer.

Every time I opened up, I was told I was wrong.

That I was too sensitive.

That I was remembering it all wrong.

Eventually I stopped speaking.

Eventually I stopped trusting myself.

I thought if I stayed quiet, it would keep the peace.

But peace that comes from silence isn’t peace.

It’s survival.

I’ve held everything in until it exploded out of me in ways I didn’t expect.

I’ve cried so hard I couldn’t breathe.

I’ve screamed into the night just to feel something move.

I’ve even punched holes in the wall and then hated myself for it.

Not because I’m violent, but because I didn’t know how else to release the pain.

When you’re never given a safe place to feel, the feelings find a way out anyway.

Sometimes the grief feels like third-degree burns.

Like I’m walking around with no protection, flinching at things other people don’t even notice.

Some days I hold it together.

Other days I don’t.

And I feel guilty.

Guilty for not being further along.

Guilty for still carrying all of it.

But more than anything, I grieve for the girl I used to be.

The one who deserved better.

The one who was scared and small and waiting for someone to notice.

No one ever did.

So now I do.

Whenever I’ve tried to talk about what happened, it’s felt like no one wanted to hear it.

Like my story was too uncomfortable or too much.

So I stopped talking.

But that silence never protected me.

It only made me disappear.

I’m not writing this for attention or pity.

I’m writing it because I’m tired of holding it in.

Because I’m done making other people comfortable at my own expense.

Because my voice matters.

Even if it shakes.

Even if it hurts.

This isn’t a healing story.

Not yet.

It’s a survival story.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the girl I used to be.

Not in a cute, nostalgic way. More like in a “wow, I really lost her” kind of way. It hurts more than I expected it to. I think because I’m realizing I didn’t just stop posting online or stop making art. I stopped being part of something that was mine.

Before people called it influencing, I was already doing it. I didn’t have some big plan. I wasn’t thinking about branding or algorithms or content strategy. I was just making things because I liked making them. I posted outfits. I made cute art. I sold prints. I had my own little websites and shops and names people knew me by. I had a whole world I was building, and at the time I don’t think I understood how special that was.

I had my own brand. That is the part I keep coming back to. I wasn’t hoping to start something someday. I had already started. I had products. I had customers. I had followers. I had people reposting my work, buying my art, and sending me drawings they made of me. One of my products went viral. I had thousands of followers back when that felt huge. I was sponsored by fashion brands before influencer marketing became this big polished machine. I was even in an art show.

I was doing something.

I was becoming someone.

Then I stopped.

I wish I could say I stopped because I wanted to move on, or because I outgrew it, or because I was ready for a different chapter. But that wouldn’t be true. I stopped because someone made me feel like I had to.

He said all I did was work. He made my passion sound like a problem. He made the thing that gave me identity and purpose feel selfish. I started to feel like the only way to keep the peace was to make myself smaller.

So I did.

I put her away. The girl with the bright hair. The girl people turned into art. The girl who made cute things and sent them out into the world. The girl who had her own brand before everyone was trying to have one.

I didn’t know what I was giving up while I was giving it up. That is what makes me sick now.

Looking back, I had momentum. I had a style before everyone was trying so hard to have an aesthetic. I had people who cared about what I made. I had proof that my creativity mattered. I had something real, and I let someone convince me that it was too much.

Now I work in a warehouse. I scan. I fold. I pack. I hit numbers. I go home tired. My work is measured in speed and output instead of imagination.

I’m not saying that because I’m ashamed of working. I’m not. I’m proud of myself for getting up and going. I’m proud that I’m trying to build an independent life after years of feeling trapped. But it still hurts. It hurts to remember there was a version of me who was visible, creative, colorful, weird, and memorable.

It hurts to wonder what would have happened if I had kept going.

Would my brand have grown into something bigger? Would my art have become my career? Would I have been able to support myself doing something I loved? Would I have become the person I was already starting to become?

I will never know.

That is what I’m grieving. Not just followers. Not just the old internet. Not just being young or cute or early to a style before it became common. I’m grieving the chance to find out who I could have been if I hadn’t been talked out of myself.

There’s no funeral for that kind of loss. Nobody brings flowers for the version of you that disappears quietly. Nobody marks the day you pack away a dream because someone else made it feel inconvenient. You just wake up years later and realize you miss her.

And I do miss her.

I miss how freely she created. I miss how much color she had. I miss feeling like I had a place. I miss being seen. I miss believing that what I made mattered.

Lately I’ve been finding little pieces of her again. Old posts. Old pins. Old drawings people made of me. Old traces of my work still floating around like proof that I was there. Proof that I existed. Proof that I made things people remembered.

It feels strange. Painful, but also kind of beautiful.

Because maybe she isn’t completely gone. Maybe she’s buried under years of survival. Under bills. Under exhaustion. Under fear. Under all the ways I learned to make myself smaller.

But she’s still here.

The girl I used to be didn’t die. She got quiet. She got scared. She got convinced that taking up space was dangerous.

Now I’m trying to teach her that it’s safe to come back.

I don’t know what that looks like yet. I don’t know if I’ll make art the same way again. I don’t know if I want to be seen online like that anymore. I don’t know if I can ever recreate what I had.

Maybe I’m not supposed to.

Maybe the point isn’t to become her again. Maybe the point is to bring her with me.

The girl I was had color. The woman I am has scars. Maybe together, they become something new.

I’m still angry. I’m still grieving. I still feel robbed. I don’t forgive him for making me feel like I had to throw myself away.

But I’m starting to understand something.

He interrupted me.

He didn’t erase me.

And if pieces of the girl I used to be are still out there after all these years, maybe there are still pieces of her inside me too.

Maybe I was somebody.

Maybe I still am.

Every day feels exactly the same. Numbers. Faster. Don’t fall behind. Don’t stop. It doesn’t matter how I feel when I walk in. No one cares. The second I’m there, it’s go.

My body starts hurting before the day is even halfway over. My legs hurt. My back hurts. It just builds and builds and there’s nothing I can do about it. And I still have hours left.

There are too many people. Too much noise. Too much everything. It never slows down. It never gets quiet. I feel overstimulated the entire time, like my brain is being pulled in every direction at once and I can’t shut any of it off.

So my body keeps going, and my mind spirals. I overthink everything. Stuff I don’t want to think about. Stuff I try to avoid. It all comes up anyway. Because there’s nothing to stop it. Just the same movement over and over while my thoughts get louder. It feels like I’m stuck in my own head and I can’t get out.

And no one knows. Or if they do, it doesn’t matter. Everyone is too busy trying to survive their own shift.

Then I leave, and I don’t feel relief. I feel stuck again. Thirty minute drive. Traffic. Anxiety. Watching everything. Holding my breath half the time. I hate it. I just want to be home.

But I have to do it again the next day. And the next. And the next.

By the time I get home, I’m not just tired. I’m done. Completely drained.

And yeah, for a second, I feel peace. It’s quiet. No people. No noise. No pressure. I can just exist. This is the only place where I feel okay.

But it doesn’t last. Because I’m already thinking about it. I only have a few hours before I have to go to sleep. Before I have to wake up. Before I have to go back.

So even my peace feels fake. Like it’s on a timer. Like I’m not even allowed to fully relax before it’s taken away again.

And the thing is, the pay is actually good. I get a 50 cent raise every six months. On paper, it looks like I’m doing the right thing. Like I should be grateful. Like I should just stick with it because it makes sense.

And that almost makes it worse.

Because it feels like I’m stuck in something that looks good enough to stay in, even though it’s draining me every single day.

And people say “just find a better job.”

When?

I work so much that I don’t even have the time or energy to look for one. By the time I get home, I’m exhausted. On my days off, I’m recovering. Trying to feel like a person again.

There’s no extra space left in me to fix my situation.

So I stay.

And the truth is, I don’t go to work because I want to. I go because I have to. I need money. I need to survive. That’s it. There’s nothing deeper than that.

So I get up and go. Even when my body hurts. Even when my brain won’t shut up. Even when I don’t want to.

I go anyway.

Because I don’t have another option right now.

Work looks simple from the outside. I clock in. I fold. I wrap. I pack. I hit my numbers. I clock out. The tasks are repetitive. Physical. Measurable. There’s something grounding about that. A clear expectation. A clear finish line.

The hard part isn’t the clothes.

It’s being perceived.

There’s this quiet awareness I carry around the building, like I’m slightly out of sync. Everyone else seems relaxed in their bodies. They joke easily. They move in groups. They belong without thinking about it.

I think about it constantly.

If I walk too close to someone, I worry they’ll say something and my brain will short circuit. If a supervisor suddenly asks me to speak, my body reacts before I can prepare. My hands shake. My chest tightens. My thoughts scatter. I hear myself talking and it feels slightly disconnected, like I’m not fully in control of the words coming out.

Inside, it feels dramatic. Outside, it probably looks like nothing.

That’s the strange part. Most of the time no one reacts. No one laughs. No one points. The moment passes. But my body stays activated long after the conversation ends. I replay it later. I analyze tone. I search for mistakes.

At the same time, there are these small, quiet wins.

Someone asking how I’m doing. Someone guessing I’m younger than I am. Sitting at the break table instead of hiding. Being included in a conversation, even briefly. Those moments feel bigger than they should.

I’ve realized the job itself isn’t the real challenge. It’s exposure. It’s letting myself be seen in small, ordinary ways. It’s resisting the urge to shrink or disappear. It’s staying in the room when my instinct says escape.

Some days I feel proud. I show up. I earn my own money. I tolerate discomfort instead of running from it. I am doing something that scares me and I am still functioning.

Other days I feel like a kid pretending to be an adult, hoping no one notices the cracks.

Both are true.

I am anxious.

I am capable.

I feel like an outsider sometimes.

I am slowly proving to myself that I’m not.

Maybe this is growth for me. Not loud confidence. Not sudden transformation. Just staying. Just breathing through the shaking. Just letting someone look at me and not collapsing.

Because pretending I’m fine got boring.

Showing up scared still counts.

Yesterday at work, Don’t Speak by No Doubt started playing. I skipped it immediately. I could not even get through the first few seconds. That song takes me straight back to him, and the wave of sadness and longing hit so hard it felt like I could not breathe.

The truth is, nostalgia used to be something I loved. It used to feel good. A song, a place, a smell could bring me back to memories that felt safe. It reminded me of love and closeness. It reminded me of nights when things felt right, when I felt cared for, when my life felt whole. I used to enjoy it because it gave me a soft place to land.

That all changed when my relationship fell apart. Now nostalgia does not feel warm anymore. It feels cruel. It comes back sharp and heavy, reminding me of everything I lost. Songs do not make me smile anymore. They sting. Thinking about my old home is not comforting. It makes me picture a time when my family was together, and that image hurts more than it helps.

When those memories rise up, I shut them down quickly. I do not sit with them. I do not let myself cry. Because if I start crying, I do not know if I will stop. So I push it down. I turn off the music. I distract myself. I keep moving. It is the only way I know to protect myself.

People talk about nostalgia like it is sweet. They say it reminds them of the good old days, or it makes them feel comforted. That is not how it feels for me anymore. It used to. But now it is nothing but pain dressed up as memory. It comes out of nowhere and tears me open when I least expect it.

I hate that I can be fine one second and wrecked the next because of a song or a thought or a place. I hate that something as simple as hearing a melody or picturing a room can make my chest ache. Nostalgia used to be one of the best feelings. Now it is one of the worst.

It shows me what I lost. It shows me what I will never get back. It does not bring comfort anymore. It only hurts.

This New Year’s will be different. I’ll be in Tennessee for a whole week with his family. His mom invited me, and since his twin brother lives in Nashville now, everyone will be together.

I’ve already spent about two and a half months at their house, so it’s not unfamiliar. But this time feels new because it’s a vacation. A trip. And it’s the first time I’ll get to share New Year’s with him in person. A whole week surrounded by his family, not as a guest passing through but as part of the plans.

For the past four years, our New Year’s tradition has been inside VRChat. Headsets on, avatars glowing under digital fireworks, music playing in virtual worlds. We would laugh, dance, kiss through pixels, and pretend it was enough. Those nights were sweet and they carried us through when distance was all we had.

But this year will be different. This year I won’t be staring at an avatar. I’ll be looking at him, his real smile, his real eyes, the warmth of his hand in mine. When the countdown begins, my heart will race not because of a screen loading fireworks but because he’s right there, standing next to me. And when the clock strikes midnight, for the first time, we’ll kiss for real.

I’m excited about so many things. I’m excited for the little, normal things we’ll get to do together, the kind of moments that don’t need to be dressed up to feel special. But I’m also excited for New Year’s Eve, for going out and being in the middle of it all, and for finally being able to grab him in the middle of the crowd and give him a big fat kiss when the new year begins.

I’ve even started thinking ahead at work. Yesterday I checked the calendar to see what days we had off so I could go ahead and put in my request for paid time off. I wanted to get it done early, to make sure I’d be approved. But it turns out it’s too soon. I have to wait until next month. Now I’m counting down not just to the trip itself, but to the day I can finally lock in those dates and know for sure they’re mine.

Now the wait is finally almost over. In about a month or so, I’ll get back what I’ve been aching for: presence. Not voices echoing through a speaker, not blurry pixels, but real laughter. Real arms around me. Real time together. That’s what I’ve missed the most.

I keep playing the scene over and over in my mind, seeing him walk through the gates at the airport, and running into his arms like it’s some cliché movie moment. But it won’t feel cliché to me. It will feel like relief, like home, like the thing I’ve been waiting months for.

And with our anniversary coming up on September 5, the timing makes it even more special. Four years of loving each other across the miles, four years of late nights and early mornings, of holding on even when everything felt stretched thin. To finally celebrate that together, in person, feels like a kind of victory. Like proof that no matter how far apart we’ve been, we’ve never let go.

What makes this visit even more important is that it will be the first time he’s coming here to see me. All the other times, I was the one traveling to Florida. This time, he’ll be stepping into my world, into my space, into the home I’ve built for myself. That means more than I can explain.

I don’t even need grand plans. What I want most is the simple stuff, cuddling at home, ordering boba, watching shows side by side instead of syncing them over a call. Falling asleep with him next to me instead of through a screen. Those are the little things that feel the biggest when you’ve been waiting this long.

He promised me he would air up my tires when my pressure light came on. I trusted him to do it because I had to be up at 3 AM and did not have time to deal with it in the morning. Instead, he showed up at almost 2 AM, left a compressor on my balcony with some instructions, and went home. My tires are still low.

When I saw that bag sitting there instead of him keeping his word, I felt angry, disappointed, and dismissed. He did not follow through, and it sent a clear message that my needs were not worth his effort.

On top of that, he brought his girlfriend, the same girl who once told him to leave me. He knows the pain and trauma that situation caused. He even admitted it once, but now pretends it never happened. Yet he still pressured me to come outside, to “be cordial” and act like I am okay with her being there. I am not. I do not owe her my time, my energy, or my peace.

The worst part is that I had told him before that I did not want anyone knowing where I lived. For me, that is about privacy and safety. It is about protecting my peace at all costs. He ignored that too.

I know he thinks I am being unreasonable for not wanting anything to do with her, but that is because he refuses to respect my boundaries. Respecting boundaries is not difficult. Keeping promises is not difficult. What is difficult is dealing with the constant dismissal when you are clear about both and still ignored.

I work for the Internet’s largest personal stylist company. People probably picture the fun side, stylists choosing outfits, customers opening a box that feels hand-picked just for them. My part isn’t glamorous. I work in quality control. Every single piece of clothing has to pass through my hands before it gets shipped out.

My job is to check each item for flaws, loose threads, missing buttons, small holes, stains. If it’s good, I fold it, wrap it, and pack it so it looks perfect when the customer opens their box. Each order has either five or eight items. Clothing, jewelry, purses, or shoes. My quota is 729 items processed in eight hours. That means I’m handling nearly a hundred pieces an hour, nonstop, with barely any room to slow down.

On paper it sounds simple. In reality, it’s exhausting. The repetition wears you down, and it’s physical. Your back aches, your feet burn, your hands cramp from folding the same way over and over again. I don’t get to sit down at all during my shift. Ten hours on my feet for mandatory overtime days, standing the entire time, with no break for your body except lunch. The monotony gets inside your head. I overthink while I work. My brain circles around old conversations, future worries, and everything in between. It feels like I’m trapped in my thoughts as much as I’m trapped in the warehouse.

For the past three weeks, we’ve been on mandatory overtime. That means I’m waking up at 3 AM to make it to work. It takes me 20 minutes to get there in the morning, but an hour to get home at night because of traffic. By the time I finally walk through my door, there’s nothing left in me. I collapse straight into bed, only to do it all over again the next day.

I remind myself it’s a stepping stone, that I need the paycheck and I’m grateful to have it. But right now, it feels like work is swallowing every other part of me. Still, the fact that I keep showing up and pushing through proves I’m stronger than I give myself credit for.

It’s been six days since I moved into my apartment, and I’m still living in this strange in-between stage where half of my life is here and half is still at my old house. The old place is close enough that I can just toss a few boxes or bags into my car, take a slow drive over, and shuttle things back in little trips. There’s something kind of comforting about that, knowing I don’t have to rush, that I can take my time and breathe this change in.

Last Saturday, I rented a U-Haul to get all the big pieces over. Watching them get carried inside felt surreal, like I was physically planting the foundation of my new life. And now, every time I walk in and see my couch, my shelves, my little bursts of color starting to pop up, I feel this quiet wave of pride.

Leaving my old house behind hasn’t been as simple as locking the door and saying goodbye. That place held years of my life. It held grief and loneliness, but also small comforts, like sunlight hitting just right in the afternoons or the familiar hum of the heater on cold mornings. It wasn’t always happy, but it was known. And leaving what’s known is its own kind of ache.

Here, every box I carry in feels like I’m bringing a piece of my future. The walls are still bare in some spots, but I already imagine the art I’ll hang there, the warm glow of fairy lights, the way the space will look on a quiet evening when the only sound is my cat moving from room to room. I can already see the cozy nights, tea in hand, wrapped in a blanket, the rain tapping on the windows.

I didn’t expect it to feel like home this quickly. It’s still in progress, still a little messy, but it’s mine. And maybe that’s the best part, knowing I get to build it exactly the way I want, one small, beautiful step at a time.

I get my keys on Friday.

I move in on Saturday.

And honestly? It still doesn’t feel real.

My living room looks like a pastel explosion right now. Boxes stacked to the ceiling, furniture still in the packaging, bags full of little things I’ve been collecting over the last few months. I’ve got pink silverware. A pastel pink toaster. A sprinkle-covered shower curtain that looks like it belongs in a donut shop. And somehow, it’s all going to come together to feel like home.

This will be the first time in my entire adult life that I’ll be living completely alone. No partner. No family. Just me and my two cats. A whole apartment all to myself. Every wall. Every cabinet. Every soft blanket and fuzzy rug and ridiculous little shelf full of trinkets.

And now it’s just two more sleeps away.

Two more nights in a space that never felt like mine. Two more mornings of waking up in limbo. Two more days until I walk into something I made happen all by myself.

It’s not some luxury apartment. There are no marble counters or rooftop views. But it’s still nice. It’s clean, safe, and quiet. Just nothing fancy. And honestly, that’s exactly what I want. I’m not trying to impress anyone. I just want peace. I want warmth. I want to decorate it in pastel pink and feel safe there.

Every single thing inside that place was picked out by me. Paid for by me. The pink couch. The sprinkle shower curtain. The Amazon cart full of cute but probably unnecessary things that still bring me joy. I built this life. Slowly. Through fear. Through uncertainty. Through working on my feet all day and coming home sore and exhausted, but still dreaming of this exact moment.

This isn’t just a move.

This is me finally stepping into something I thought I’d never get.

It’s quiet. It’s cozy. It’s mine.

And in just two more sleeps, I get to start over in a space filled with everything I love.

I don’t even know how to explain this but I’ve entered my soft girl domestic era and it’s getting dangerous.

I said, “I’m gonna move into my own place and be minimal and sensible.”

And Amazon said, “No you’re not.”

So now I own:

• A tea set I will probably never use

• Cat ear headphones that make me look like I stream Fortnite for toddlers

• A pink soundbar because I want my TV to sound good and look like it belongs in Barbie’s penthouse

• Pink everything: litter boxes, wall decals, oven mitts, soap dispensers, budget planners like I didn’t just drop $700 on glittery dish scrubbers and cute colanders

• Paris Hilton cutting boards because I guess I need to be sexy while I chop vegetables?

My cats are getting a luxury setup. I have matching containers for food they will knock over anyway. My wind chimes are pink. My rugs are pink. My tools are pink. My vibe is “baby princess moved out and got financial independence with a side of vengeance.”

I told myself I was just “gathering essentials.” Somehow that translated to:

“I need a pink magnetic spice rack, a kawaii litter scoop, and pastel muffin liners for the zero muffins I will be baking.”

Do I know how to live alone yet? No.

Do I own a pink duster wand? Yes.

Do I feel powerful? Absolutely.

Eleven more days until I move in. Until then, I’ll be refreshing my delivery tracking like it’s a full-time job.

There was a time I shared everything. Every update. Every emotion. Every crack in the glass. I used to hand people front row seats to my life like it was a show, even when I was unraveling in real time. Maybe part of me hoped that if enough people saw me, someone would understand me. But it never worked like that.

The shift came when my relationship ended. Suddenly, my life wasn’t mine anymore. It was gossip. Everybody was talking. Strangers. Old friends. People who barely knew me. They were jumping to conclusions and stirring up drama that wasn’t theirs to touch. It felt like they were playing a game with the pieces of my heartbreak.

And I’ll be honest. I used to make it easy for them. I would overshare to the point of self-destruction. I let people watch me fall apart. I leaned into the stereotype. The dramatic girl. The crazy one. The girl who didn’t work because her husband made good money. I played the part, thinking if I controlled the narrative, I could protect myself. But I wasn’t protecting anything. I was bleeding for an audience that clapped when I cracked.

If I could talk to her now, the version of me who posted every fight, every breakdown, every desperate cry for connection, I’d tell her to sit down and just shut up. Not to be cruel, but to save her. To protect her from herself. From the internet. From the people who were never going to love her, only dissect her.

I don’t live like that anymore.

Now, when I share something, it’s light. It’s progress. It’s pride. It’s proof that I’m still standing. The dark parts? I keep those close. I give them to the people who’ve earned the right to hold them gently. Not everyone deserves my pain. Not everyone deserves my truth.

Privacy feels like peace now.

Not because I have something to hide, but because I finally understand what’s worth keeping. My healing. My softness. My pride. My silence. My joy. I still feel everything. I still cry. I still fall apart. But I do it on my own terms. In rooms that don’t echo.

I’ve stopped performing. I’ve stopped giving myself away.

Even here, on this blog, I stay anonymous. Not out of shame. Out of self-respect. I write from the heart, but I don’t need my name attached to every wound I’ve stitched shut. I don’t want the people from my past lurking in my healing space. I don’t want to make it easy for anyone to find me just so they can watch and whisper again. This blog is mine. It’s for me. For people who get it. For people who read to understand, not to judge. That boundary is one of the kindest things I’ve ever given myself.

Some things are mine now. And they’re staying that way.

I’ve come to realize that a big part of my healing journey isn’t just about getting over pain. It’s about catching up to the version of myself that should’ve existed if life hadn’t frozen me in place. Emotionally, I never made it past 19. That’s where I stalled. That’s the year my life stopped being mine.

I’ve built whole decades on top of that version of me, but she’s still underneath it all. Confused, overwhelmed, trying her best. And sometimes I feel like I’m just dressing her up in grown-up responsibilities, pretending I know what I’m doing.

I was 19 when everything changed. While most people were just figuring out who they were, I was getting married and having a baby. I went from being a teenager to being a wife and a mom practically overnight. There was no in-between, no slow unfolding of adulthood. Just a hard, immediate shift. Ready or not.

And I wasn’t ready.

I didn’t get the chance to become someone before I was responsible for someone else.

It’s wild to think how young that is. At 19, I still felt like a kid in a lot of ways. But suddenly, I was expected to know how to build a life, keep a marriage together, raise a child, manage a home. I didn’t even know how to take care of myself yet. I just shoved all my feelings into the background and did what needed to be done. Survival mode became my default setting.

The girl I was at 19 thought she was destined for something great. I really believed that. Not in an arrogant way, but in that quiet, hopeful way you do when the world still feels wide open. I had dreams, ambition, and this deep-down feeling that I was meant for more.

But I gave all that up.

Not because I stopped believing in myself, but because I thought that’s what love required. I thought being a good wife and a good mom meant putting everything else on the back burner. So I did. I folded myself up neatly, tucked away my fire, and tried to be who I was supposed to be.

And for a while, I convinced myself that was enough.

But the truth is, I never really grew up.

Not all the way.

I still feel like a teenager most days. Not in the way that makes you feel young and free, but in the way that makes you feel out of sync with the world around you. Like everyone else got a manual on how to be an adult and I somehow missed it. I have teenage interests. I collect toys. I fill my space with color and cuteness and comfort because it makes me feel safe. Like I’m trying to rebuild something I lost a long time ago.

And when I talk to people who intimidate me, people in authority or with a lot of confidence, I feel myself shrink. My voice changes. My posture. It’s like I involuntarily age regress without even meaning to. That 19-year-old girl takes over. Or maybe even the version of me that came before her. The one who still needed to be taken care of but never really was.

There are parts of me I buried so deep back then. My freedom, my softness, my playfulness. And they’ve started showing up in strange, unexpected ways now. Not because I’m immature. But because I never got to fully be that version of myself in the first place.

People misunderstand this part of me all the time. They see the toys, the aesthetic, the softness, and they assume I’m childish. Or stunted. Or avoiding adulthood. But the truth is, this version of me, the one they see as stuck, feels the most real. The most me.

It makes me feel safe. And not in some shallow, surface-level way. Safe in the deepest way possible. Like I’ve finally come home to myself after being lost for decades.

This isn’t regression. It’s reclamation.

I’m not stuck in the past because I refuse to grow. I’m stuck because I never got to be. Never got to fully live through those years with freedom or support or even the space to explore who I was.

So yeah, maybe I still feel like a teenager. Maybe I speak softer around certain people. Maybe I decorate my world with things most adults leave behind. But maybe that’s because I’m healing in the only way I know how.

There are moments when I feel 19 all over again, and not always in a bad way.

When someone shows me real affection, gentleness, softness, love without strings, I turn into a baby. Not on purpose. It just happens. My voice changes. My whole demeanor shifts. I get quiet, shy, almost childlike. It’s like a part of me that’s been starved for kindness finally gets fed, and she doesn’t know how to act.

Affection triggers something in me. A longing. A memory I can’t fully place. It’s overwhelming in the most fragile way. Like I’m finally being offered something I should’ve had all along, and I don’t know how to receive it without falling apart a little.

It’s not just love I’m reacting to. It’s safety. It’s comfort. It’s finally, maybe, being allowed to be small, for once, without being punished for it.

If I could sit across from my 19-year-old self right now, I think I’d cry before I even said a word. Because I know how heavy she’s carrying everything. I know how much she’s about to give up. How much she’s going to silence and swallow just to survive.

I’d take her hand and say:

“Please… let yourself become who you’re meant to be first. Before the marriage. Before the babies. Before the world tells you who you should be. Just become. Dream louder. Stay soft. Don’t rush into being everything for everyone else. You deserve to know who you are before anyone else tries to shape it.”

But I didn’t say that. No one did.

And now here I am, decades later, trying to unfreeze her. Trying to give her space. Trying to let her feel everything she buried.

Maybe healing isn’t about growing up the way people expect.

Maybe it’s about honoring the version of me that never got the chance to live out loud.

And maybe that’s okay.

We went out for burritos. Just me and my soon to be ex-husband. And no, not a date. Not some weird emotional entanglement or unfinished business playing out over guacamole. Just two people who were married for 25 years, shared a life, raised a family, built a world together, and then… eventually… let go of it.

We’re not together anymore. We’ve moved on. We both have other people in our lives now. Real relationships. Real love. And we’re happy that way.

But that doesn’t erase everything that came before.

It doesn’t erase the fact that we still know each other better than anyone else probably ever will. It doesn’t erase the years of inside jokes, the quiet understanding that only comes from living side by side for half your life, or the ability to sit across from each other at a restaurant and not need to fill every silence. There’s a rhythm that happens after 25 years together, and even when the romantic part ends, that rhythm doesn’t always just vanish.

We had dinner. We talked. It was chill. Then we went to the bar and played darts, because that’s what we used to do together, and it’s still fun. There was no awkwardness. No tension. No hidden meaning behind it.

Until someone made it weird.

One of the regulars at the bar came up to me, completely baffled. “Wait,” she said, looking at us like we were ghosts. “I thought you guys broke up?”

And I said, “We did.”

She didn’t say anything. Just blinked at me. So I added, “We just went out to dinner. We’re cool with each other. We’re friends.”

Still nothing. Just a long pause and that look. You know the one. The one that says that’s not how this is supposed to go.

Apparently, it’s confusing to people when two exes don’t hate each other. When they can laugh in the same room. When they’re not harboring some secret war or waiting for a moment to go off on each other. Apparently, choosing peace is harder to process than staying stuck in resentment.

And I get it. Most people don’t see this part of a breakup. They see the explosion or the fallout. They hear the stories or witness the damage. They assume the only “normal” path forward is avoidance, bitterness, or fake civility with an underlying sting.

But here’s the thing… we already lived the explosion. We already fell apart. We cried. We screamed. We said the things we shouldn’t have and sat in the silence when we didn’t say what we should have. We made mistakes. We broke each other’s hearts, even if it wasn’t all at once.

We went through hell, and now we’re just trying to be human again.

There’s no unfinished chapter here. There’s no plot twist coming. We’re not getting back together. We don’t want to. We’re just… not angry anymore. We’ve both done a lot of healing. We’ve both moved on in our own ways. And now we’re just existing in this strange, quiet space where we can be kind to each other without it meaning something more.

People think that’s weird. But to us, it’s just normal now.

I’m not saying it would work for everyone. I’m not saying there’s no history or that it didn’t hurt. But I am saying that sometimes, when the dust settles and the heartbreak quiets down, there’s something left that’s soft and mutual and honest. And if you’re lucky, it’s not bitterness. It’s not pretending you never knew each other. It’s just… understanding. And maybe even a little friendship.

So yeah. We went out. We played darts. We didn’t make it a big deal. And if you’re uncomfortable with that? That’s really not my problem.

It’s not weird for us.

It only seems to be weird for everyone else.