I didn’t notice the exact moment I slipped under. It wasn’t dramatic, more like a slow fade. One day I looked up and realized whole months, even years had gone by, and I wasn’t sure how to explain any of it, even to myself. Trauma has a way of doing that, eating away at the edges of your life until you don’t recognize the shape of things anymore.
For a long time, I blamed myself for that. For going quiet. For slowing down. For needing help. For not being “strong enough” in the ways I thought I should be. But the truth is, I wasn’t disappearing. I was doing work no one could see. The kind of work that doesn’t look inspiring or tidy from the outside. The kind of work that happens in the nervous system, in old wounds, in the places you don’t talk about because you barely have language for them.
There were days I truly fell apart. Days where even breathing felt like effort. Days where the weight of cancer, parenting, appointments, fear, and grief pressed so hard that all I could do was exist in a puddle of my own tears and hope that was enough. And somehow, even in those moments, something in me kept trying. It kept reaching. It kept choosing to stay. Tiny, shaky steps, but still steps.
That’s what I’m proud of. Not the polished parts. Not the brave face. Not the strength people think they see. I’m proud of the quiet work. The work done in the dark. The work no one claps for…the work only I could do.
Trauma therapy cracked open places I didn’t know were still holding their breath. It taught my body that danger isn’t everywhere, that it’s allowed to soften, that I can belong to myself again. And slowly, painfully, beautifully, I started to come back.
I still feel fragile. I think that’s just the truth for now. But I also feel steady in a new way. Steady enough to write again. Steady enough to let my voice exist without trying to manage how it lands. Steady enough to stop explaining myself to ghosts. So this letter isn’t a comeback. It’s a recognition!
I went missing for a while. I lost pieces of myself. But I didn’t disappear. I’ve been rebuilding quietly and honestly and on my own terms.
If I ever doubt myself again, I want this written somewhere: I did the hardest work of my life in silence, and no one has to understand it for it to matter. I survived things I was never prepared for. I rebuilt pieces of myself I thought were gone forever.
And this part is important; I don’t owe anyone a performance of what that healing looked like.
This letter isn’t an update or an invitation. It’s a marker for me. A reminder that I am allowed to choose myself quietly and privately and without apology.
I’m proud of the woman standing here now, fragile yes, but awake.
And waking up is its own kind of triumph.
Letters To Life 