Where Did You Go? Missing Me

I don’t know about y’all but sometimes, I just feel missing. Absent from a space. Like I’m either not really there or I don’t want to be there, or like who I thought I was, just simply doesn’t exist anymore. Occasionally I get a glimpse of me but it’s never quite clear. I’m never around long enough to fully say, “ah there you are!”

It’s an odd space to be in. Feeling like you but not you. Feeling like you’re there but you’re really not. Or at least not in a way that you recognize.  It’s an odd space to be when you look in the mirror, into your own eyes and no longer see a spark. Maybe the image is clouded by tears but either way, you don’t see it anymore and you just flat out don’t recognize yourself sometimes. Who is this stranger?

I don’t like change. I mean, who really does, right? But seriously, I’m not a fan. I struggle with it on so many levels because I work hard to make things comfortable for myself and my family.  I like structure and order and routine with some generous sprinkles of fun throughout.  I’m fairly consistent. If you’ve known me for years, I’ve matured but in essence am pretty much the same person at my core.  I probably wouldn’t be the person you’d see after a long absence and say, “wow she’s SO different!”  I don’t think that’s good or bad, I just think it’s me. Some find comfort in that.  I haven’t been told otherwise.  So when we suffered this horrendous loss and started on this journey of healing, the quest to feel “better” was really plaguing me. Like, wtf?! Why couldn’t I just feel better!? I tried to do things I did in the past that always lifted my spirits and even tried some new stuff in hopes it would spark something in me. What I noticed? Any feelings of “better” were short-lived and I quickly plummeted back to a place of sadness and melancholy. The me I knew for all these years just wasn’t there anymore. Glimpses, yes… I got glimpses of me but never the whole.

I started thinking, “maybe I’m gone?” Maybe that version of myself died in L&D right when my girls transitioned. I have to (and have been) mourning the loss of myself almost as much as I have been mourning the loss of Aviva & Jora. It’s a drastic shift…change… It’s hard af to wrap my brain around it as well as my spirit and heart. I don’t like it. I kind of hate it because of how painful it is. I recently started thinking about why it’s so painful and came to the conclusion that it has to do with me holding onto the past.    I can’t keep holding onto a path that wasn’t for me. I thought it was and that’s why it’s so hard to let go. It also may be why the universe saw fit to jostle my world so dramatically to shift my trajectory. Maybe I wouldn’t have gone the  way I am otherwise. That’s a hard pill to swallow…

So, where did I go?  Away… out… with my girls. Part of me did and in some ways I look very different to myself now. Others may not necessarily notice it but I do. I’m on a journey to get to know the new me. Taking with me what served me and cleaning out/leaving behind what doesn’t.  It’s necessary work and though it’s a goodbye, it’s also a hello. A turning of the page if you will… You can’t keep reading the same page over and over again or you’ll never experience the whole story.