When Night Falls

 I don’t have a clear memory of exactly how I felt as a child.

But there are some things I know for sure.

I know I was afraid of my parents and of being punished.

I remember bedtime.

My sister and I shared a bed, and we were told that we better be quiet—or else.

My little girl learned to become very still.

Even into adulthood, I could sleep all night and wake up in the exact same position I had fallen asleep in, barely moving.

I also know I had nightmares as a child.

And there was no one there to console me.

No one to tell me that I was safe.

Sometimes I see the similarities between those nights and what I am experiencing today.

My little girl seems to show up most strongly at night.

I can feel her terror.

It is as though some part of her is still waiting for punishment.

Still waiting for something bad to happen.

And when my physical pain becomes intense at night, I wonder if something inside her recognizes that feeling.

Pain can feel like punishment to a child who learned early that punishment was always waiting around the corner.

I don’t know exactly what happened in those early years.

But there are things my body seems to be carrying that my conscious mind cannot fully explain.

What I do know is that something in me feels afraid.

Something in me is still waiting.

And perhaps my physical struggles have stirred up that old fear in ways I am only beginning to understand.

There is trauma here.

I can feel it.

And maybe I don’t have to uncover every detail to honor what that little girl experienced.

Maybe I simply need to sit beside her when night comes.

To tell her,

You don’t have to be perfectly still anymore.

You don’t have to wait for punishment.

And when the pain comes, perhaps I can remind her of something she never heard enough as a child:

Pain is not punishment.

You did nothing wrong.

You are safe with me.

Maybe this is what healing looks like.

Not forcing the memories to come.

Not demanding that the fear disappear.

But staying beside her in the darkness until, little by little, she learns that night does not mean danger.

Trusting My Intuition

 As a child, I didn’t have much choice.

I was expected to do what my parents told me to do.

Their decisions were the decisions.

Their feelings mattered.

Their rules were to be followed.

I learned early not to question the people who were supposed to know better.

But somewhere along the way, I carried that lesson into adulthood.

I still listened too much to the advice of other people.

Doctors.

Experts.

People I believed knew more than I did.

These past few years have brought that pattern into sharp focus.

I have listened to doctor after doctor give me direction, hoping that the next treatment, the next procedure, or the next answer would finally bring relief.

Some were wonderful doctors.

I don’t believe they were careless or didn’t want to help me.

But I’ve come to realize that no one person can always see the whole picture.

They see what they have been trained to see.

They have their knowledge, their experience, and their perspective.

But I am the one living inside this body.

I am the one who feels what is happening.

And somewhere along the way, I began to understand that I have another source of wisdom.

My intuition.

It took me many years to even recognize that I had one.

It took even longer to trust it.

Perhaps that is because trusting my intuition requires something I wasn’t taught as a child.

Trusting myself.

Listening to that quiet voice inside me.

Paying attention when something doesn’t feel right.

Allowing myself to ask questions.

And giving myself permission to say, “I don’t know if this is right for me.”

I don’t have to reject the wisdom of others to honor my own.

I can listen.

I can learn.

I can consider advice.

And then I can go inside myself and ask,

What do I know?

What does my body tell me?

What feels right?

Maybe this is another part of becoming the safe place for the little girl inside me.

She spent so many years being told what to think, what to feel, and what to do.

Now I want her to know that she has a voice.

And I am finally learning to listen.

Too Many Goodbyes

 My heart feels heavy today.

It is carrying a lot of sadness.

Eight years of watching the disease of addiction take more and more of my daughter, until eventually I lost her completely.

And then there is my grandmother.

She came to live with me in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s.

Of all the people in my life, she was one of the people I loved and trusted the most.

She was someone who made me feel safe.

And then I had to watch the disease slowly take her farther and farther away from me.

At first, there were little things.

Things she forgot.

Moments that didn’t quite seem like her.

And then there came a time when she didn’t know me anymore.

That kind of loss is difficult to explain.

Because the person you love is still physically there, but pieces of the relationship begin disappearing before they do.

It feels like a death before the death.

And there have been other losses too.

So many goodbyes.

The last was my partner.

He had been my rock through so many of the losses in my family.

When so much of what was familiar to me was disappearing, he was the person who remained.

And then I lost him too.

His absence left a tremendous hole in my heart.

I think about how many goodbyes my heart has had to endure.

Watching someone slowly disappear.

Letting go.

Losing.

Then learning how to live with the empty space they leave behind.

Maybe that is why my heart feels so heavy today.

Sometimes we grieve someone while they are still sitting right in front of us.

Sometimes we say goodbye a thousand times before we ever say the final one.

And perhaps that is what my heart is carrying now.

Not just the loss of my daughter.

Not just the loss of my grandmother.

Not just the loss of my partner.

But all the goodbyes.

All the pieces of people I loved that disappeared long before I was ready to let them go.

I have survived so many endings.

But surviving them doesn’t mean they didn’t leave a mark.

Today, I don’t think I need to make the sadness go away.

Maybe I just need to let my heart be heavy.

To honor what was lost.

To honor how deeply I loved.

Because perhaps the depth of the grief is also evidence of the depth of the love.