Untethered
These words, shared often with friends, family, and clients, have become my drumbeat: Don’t look up. Look ahead, right in front of you. Start there. And so, here I am.
Since the day mom ended her life, I have been floating and flailing and treading, reaching for others, like a child in the dark, deep end, grasping for someone who can touch.
Maybe if I am still, I’ll be able to touch too, so I hold my breath.
That night, I looked into the mirror and saw the reflection of a wholly unchanged, yet entirely transformed, me. It was my face staring back at me, naturally, but my eyes, they were empty in every way except for the darkness.
Don’t look up.
So, I started looking back, trying to remember what it was like — what I was like — searching for remnants of the before. But I couldn’t remember because that reality vanished the moment I answered the phone. Undeterred, my mind doomscrolling for a loophole, all I found was obligation, expectation, disappointment, and make believe — parts of me I do not wish to reclaim.
And then I found it, the loophole: I don’t have to go back.
In all the remembering, the learning to breathe again, I forgot myself. I forgot my strength, my resilience. I forgot to stand up. I forgot to be still. I forgot who I am.
Put your feet on the ground and move forward.
I know coming back to myself means I am going to feel everything, all of it. A brutal but necessary component of healing, in my opinion. And I know the pain won’t ever really go away. Instead, it will linger, ebbing and flowing, just like joy and passion. There is no antidote to grief, after all, just the balm of healing.
Afraid and uncertain, untethered from the before, reaching for what’s to come, and holding on tightly to what sustains me now, the darkness is finally at my back.
