Still Here

There is a version of me that nobody really knows.

She exists underneath the mother who gets everyone dressed, fed, loved, comforted, and taken care of.

Underneath the woman who answers, “I’m fine,” because explaining the truth feels exhausting.

Underneath the smile.

Underneath the patience.

Underneath the woman who keeps showing up even when she has nothing left to give.

There is a woman underneath all of that who has cried in silence.

Who has questioned her worth.

Who has wondered why loving people so deeply could sometimes leave her feeling so alone.

Who has laid awake at night replaying conversations, searching for the moment everything changed.

Who has wondered why she could give so much of herself and still feel unseen.

That woman is me.

And for a long time, I was ashamed of how tired I became.

I thought strength meant never breaking.

I thought being a good mother meant putting myself last every single time.

I thought being a good wife meant understanding everyone else’s feelings even when nobody was trying to understand mine.

I thought if I loved harder, gave more, explained myself better, stayed quieter, forgave faster, and asked for less, maybe I would finally feel safe enough to rest.

But eventually, something inside me whispered:

You cannot keep abandoning yourself just to keep everyone else comfortable.

And that whisper changed everything.

I became very good at surviving.

Nobody tells you that survival can look beautiful from the outside.

You can be cooking dinner while your heart is breaking.

You can be holding your child while trying not to cry.

You can laugh with your family while carrying an entire storm inside your chest.

You can take care of everyone while secretly wondering who would take care of you if you finally stopped.

I know what it feels like to live in survival mode.

To have a body that has carried more than people realize.

To have health battles that nobody can see.

To have anxiety make your thoughts louder than the room around you.

To feel exhausted and still get up.

To be hurting and still mother.

To be scared and still continue.

There were days when simply getting through the day was an accomplishment nobody applauded.

And maybe that’s why I became so hard on myself.

Because I didn’t realize that surviving was already an act of strength.

I have loved deeply.

Maybe too deeply.

I’ve loved people with the kind of love where I give pieces of myself without keeping score.

I have wanted to feel chosen.

Protected.

Considered.

Loved in the same language my heart understands.

Not because I need perfection.

Not because I expect someone to save me.

But because I have spent so much of my life being strong that sometimes I just wanted somewhere I could finally put the weight down.

There is a particular kind of loneliness that happens when you are surrounded by people but don’t feel emotionally held by anyone.

It is the loneliness of being touched but not understood.

Heard but not truly listened to.

Loved but still questioning whether you matter.

And that kind of loneliness can make you question yourself.

Am I asking for too much?

Am I too sensitive?

Am I too emotional?

Why isn’t what hurts me hurting them?

For years, I searched myself for the problem.

Maybe I needed to be easier.

Quieter.

Less emotional.

Less needy.

Less human.

But healing has taught me something:

Having needs does not make me difficult.

Wanting tenderness does not make me weak.

Wanting to feel chosen does not make me desperate.

Wanting peace does not make me selfish.

And having boundaries does not make me cruel.

Then there was grief.

The kind that changes the shape of you.

The kind that doesn’t always announce itself with tears.

Sometimes grief looks like getting through the morning.

Sometimes it looks like hearing a memory and feeling your chest tighten.

Sometimes it is missing someone in the middle of an ordinary moment.

And sometimes grief isn’t only about losing a person.

Sometimes you grieve the childhood you deserved.

The woman you thought you would become.

The love you thought would feel different.

The years you wish you could get back.

The version of yourself who believed everything would eventually make sense.

I’ve had to grieve things I couldn’t fix.

And that has been one of the hardest lessons of my life.

Because I am a woman who wants to fix things.

I want to understand.

I want answers.

I want closure.

But sometimes healing begins when you stop demanding an explanation from something that was never capable of giving you one.

I’m learning that healing isn’t pretty.

It isn’t waking up one morning and suddenly being over everything.

It isn’t forgiving everyone.

It isn’t forgetting.

It isn’t pretending the past didn’t hurt.

Healing is crying and then washing your face.

Healing is setting a boundary and feeling guilty about it anyway.

Healing is choosing not to explain yourself seventeen times.

Healing is realizing that someone’s inability to love you properly was never proof that you were unlovable.

Healing is learning to sit with yourself without needing someone else to tell you that you’re enough.

Healing is looking in the mirror and refusing to speak to yourself the way the world sometimes has.

Healing is saying:

I deserve kindness too.

I am learning to come back to myself.

Not the old me.

She is gone.

And maybe that’s okay.

Because I don’t want to become the woman I was before everything happened.

I want to become the woman who knows herself now.

The woman who recognizes red flags.

The woman who listens when her body says enough.

The woman who doesn’t confuse suffering with love.

The woman who knows that peace is not boring.

The woman who understands that boundaries are not walls.

The woman who can love someone without losing herself inside them.

The woman who can be a mother and still be a woman.

The woman who can take care of her children without forgetting that she deserves care too.

The woman who can say, “This hurt me,” without apologizing for having feelings.

The woman who can finally look at herself and say:

I am proud of you.

Not because you handled everything perfectly.

But because you kept going.

My children have seen a stronger mother than I realized.

They have seen me tired.

They have seen me cry.

They have seen me get back up.

And I hope one day they understand that their mother wasn’t perfect.

She was human.

She was learning.

She was fighting battles they couldn’t see.

She was trying to build a home filled with love while learning how to build a home inside herself.

I don’t want my children to learn that being a woman means disappearing for everyone else.

I want them to know that love should never require you to abandon yourself.

I want them to see that it is possible to break.

And rebuild.

To hurt.

And heal.

To lose pieces of yourself.

And find them again.

And somewhere along the way, I found God in the quiet.

Not always in answers.

Sometimes just in the strength to get through another day.

Sometimes in the tiny moments that reminded me there was still beauty left.

A child’s laugh.

A sunrise.

A butterfly.

A quiet room.

A prayer whispered when I didn’t have the words for anything else.

I’ve prayed for circumstances to change.

I’ve prayed for my family.

I’ve prayed for my health.

I’ve prayed for peace.

But lately, my prayer has changed.

God, help me become whole even when my circumstances aren’t.

Help me stop measuring my worth by how other people treat me.

Help me release what I cannot control.

Help me recognize what is meant for me.

Help me become gentle with the woman who has spent so many years being strong.

And most of all—

help me never abandon myself again.

I’m still here.

That’s the part I don’t want to forget.

After the heartbreak.

After the trauma.

After the fear.

After the loneliness.

After the days when my mind was too loud and my heart was too tired.

After the moments I wondered how much more I could carry.

After everything I lost.

After everything I became.

I’m still here.

Not untouched.

Not unchanged.

Not completely healed.

But here.

And maybe healing isn’t about becoming untouched by life.

Maybe healing is becoming soft again without becoming naïve.

Becoming loving without becoming self-abandoning.

Becoming vulnerable without giving everyone access to you.

Becoming strong without having to pretend you don’t hurt.

Maybe healing is realizing that the cracks don’t make you ugly.

They prove you survived the breaking.

So I am no longer trying to return to who I was.

I’m walking toward who I am becoming.

A woman who chooses herself.

A mother who wants her children to see what healing looks like.

A woman who still believes in love but finally understands that love must include herself too.

A woman who has cried enough tears to know that tears are not weakness.

A woman who has survived enough to know that survival is not the end of the story.

There is still life ahead of me.

There are still dreams I haven’t touched.

Places I haven’t seen.

Laughter I haven’t heard.

Versions of myself I haven’t met.

And maybe one day I’ll look back at this woman—the exhausted, hurting, searching woman—and instead of wishing I could save her from everything she went through…

I’ll thank her.

Because she carried me here.

I am not what happened to me.

I am what I chose to become after it.

I am healing.

I am growing.

I am learning.

I am becoming.

And after everything—

I am still here.

🦋