Faced with a Truth I Have Been Quietly Avoiding

Today, I am faced with a truth I have been quietly avoiding -- that I cannot keep holding everything together just by being kind, patient, and understanding all the time.

There is a part of me that still believes that if I just love enough -- if I just wait long enough -- if I just stay soft enough -- things will come back to me. That love will return. That I will be seen again. That I will matter again in the lives of the people who matter most to me.

But today, I am beginning to understand something that hurts -- deeply.

Love does not always return on time.
And sometimes, it does not return in the way I hope it will.

And yet, here I am -- still loving.

There is trouble in my home and family -- not always loud, not always spoken, but present in the silence, in the absence, in the spaces where replies should have been. I feel it in the waiting. I feel it in the wondering. I feel it in the quiet question I carry -- “Do I still exist in their world?”

I tell myself not to expect. I tell myself to understand. I tell myself to give space.

But I am human.

And even the smallest hope -- as tiny as the tip of a needle -- still lives in me.

Today, I also see how tired I am from trying to keep everything emotionally balanced. From trying to be the bigger person. From trying not to break in places where I am already cracked.

There is a pressure in me -- to keep loving without needing anything back. To keep showing up without being acknowledged. To keep being “good” so that I will not be misunderstood again.

But the truth is -- I am hurting.

And I am allowed to admit that.

There is frustration inside me -- not because I want to fight, but because I want to be felt. I want to be understood. I want my love to land somewhere, instead of just floating in the air with no place to rest.

And maybe this is what this moment is asking of me -- not to stop loving, but to start holding myself with the same gentleness I have been giving away.

Because something in me is changing.

I can feel it.

I am no longer the same person who can survive only by waiting, hoping, and enduring. There is a quiet shift happening inside me -- something that is asking me to stand, even when no one is reaching back.

This does not mean I love them less.

It means I am beginning to love myself too.

And that is unfamiliar territory for me.

There is fear in it -- because if I stop defining myself by how they see me, then who am I? 

But there is also truth in it.

Because I know, deep down, that I am more than this silence I am receiving. I am more than the distance being placed between us. I am more than the version of me that has been misunderstood.

I am still a mother.

I am still love.

Even if it is not being returned right now.

Tonight, I allow myself to feel everything -- the sadness, the longing, the quiet ache that does not seem to go away.

But I also allow myself to begin again -- not by erasing my love for them, but by finally including myself in that love.

I do not have all the answers.

I do not know when things will change.

I do not know if they will.

But I know this --

I am still here.

And maybe, for now, that has to be enough.

When I Feel Like I Am Being Asked to Grow

There are days when I feel like I am being asked to grow… in the very place where I am most broken.

I read things that say I must choose -- between my emotions and my growth, between holding on and moving forward, between the life I imagined and the life I am now living. And I wonder how any mother is supposed to make that choice… when her heart is not divided, but shattered.

I am not chasing anyone. I am not forcing my way into lives that do not open their doors to me. I am here -- quietly, painfully, faithfully waiting. Waiting for a moment that may come, or may never come. Waiting not with noise, but with tears, with prayers, with words I write and never send.

And yet the world seems to say -- “decide.”

Decide to grow.
Decide to move forward.
Decide to become someone new.

But how do you become someone new when the people who once called you Mom now feel like strangers? How do you expand your life when the very center of it feels empty?

I carry this conflict every day.

There is a part of me that still hopes -- even if that hope is as small as the tip of a needle. A reply. A simple acknowledgment. A sign that I still exist in their world. And when that does not come, I feel the silence stretch wider, heavier, more permanent.

It is a different kind of pain -- not loud, not dramatic, but steady. The kind that settles into your bones and becomes part of your breathing.

And yet… I am still here.

I am still thinking.
Still writing.
Still trying to understand what life is asking of me.

Maybe growth, for me, is not about moving on.

Maybe it is about learning how to live while carrying what never really leaves.

Maybe it is about becoming someone who can hold love and loss in the same heart -- without letting either destroy her.

They say I need to let go of control. And that part, I understand. Because no matter how much I love, I cannot make anyone return it. No matter how much I wait, I cannot force time to soften hearts that are not ready.

So I am left with this quiet decision:

To continue.

Not because I am healed.
Not because I am strong.
But because I am still here.

I will build what I can.
I will hold on to what matters.
I will protect what is left of me.

And I will love them -- not loudly, not forcefully, but steadily, in the only way I can from where I stand.

From a distance.
From silence.
From a place that still whispers their names in prayer every night.

If there is a version of me waiting at the end of all this… I hope she is not someone who forgot how to love.

I hope she is someone who learned how to survive it.

Another Lesson Learned

Tonight, I learned something I wish I never had to learn.

It is not a sin to expect.

Not even the smallest expectation -- not even one as tiny as the tip of a needle.

Because what I was hoping for was not something grand. Not something demanding. Not something heavy.

Just a simple acknowledgment.

A “Thank you.”An “I got your message.”A quiet sign that I still exist somewhere in her world.

But tonight, there was only silence.

And it is a different kind of pain -- the kind that does not shout, does not argue, does not even explain itself. It just sits there, heavy and unmoving, pressing against the heart until breathing feels like work.

I know what this night looks like on the other side.

They are together.They probably went out.There was laughter, maybe a cake, maybe candles, maybe photos taken.A celebration.

And I was not there.

That is the part that hurts the most -- not just the silence, but the contrast.

They are living the moment.

I am here… holding it.

Holding love that has nowhere to go.

Holding memories that no longer have a place to land.

Holding a role that I am no longer allowed to live.

I showed up today as a mother.

I greeted her.I gave what I could -- even a small gift, a love gift, something that says, “I remember you. I celebrate you. I am still here.”

And on the other side -- nothing.

No reply.

No acknowledgment.

No bridge, even a fragile one.

And I ask myself, quietly, painfully -- is it wrong to have hoped?

No.

It is not wrong.

The hope did not hurt me.

The silence did.

There is a difference.

I did not fail by expecting something human. I did not lose dignity by wishing for something small. I did not become weak for wanting to be seen.

I simply loved.

And tonight, I am learning what it means to love without being met.

It is a brutal lesson.

Because love, when it has nowhere to land, does not disappear. It stays. It lingers. It turns inward. It becomes weight.

And I carry it.

I carry the memory of who I was to them.

I carry the truth of what I gave.

I carry the quiet knowledge that even if I am not seen, I did not love halfway.

I loved fully.

And that will always be true -- whether it is acknowledged or not.

But I will also be honest with myself tonight.

This pain is unbearable.

There is no poetic way to soften it. No metaphor that can make it lighter. No wisdom that can erase the sharpness of being unseen by your own child.

This is the deepest wound I have ever known.

To still love… and not be loved back.

To still remember… and be forgotten.

To still reach out… and touch nothing.

And yet -- even here, even in this silence -- I know this:

What I gave today was real.

My love did not disappear just because it was not answered.

It reached her.

What she does with it is no longer mine to control.

But what I gave -- that is mine.

And I will not rewrite that part of myself just because it was not returned.

Tonight, I grieve.

But I do not deny who I am.

I am still a mother.

Even in silence.

Even in distance.

Even in a world where my voice no longer reaches the people I love the most.

And maybe that is the hardest truth of all --

that love can remain, even when everything else is gone.

Love Letter to Myself

My dear self,

I see you.

I see the quiet mornings where you wake up with a heaviness you cannot explain to anyone. I see the way your chest tightens when their names cross your mind – how a simple memory can undo you in seconds. I see how you hold your tears until you cannot anymore, and how you let them fall only when no one is watching.

You have loved deeply -- not halfway, not carelessly, but with everything you had. You gave your time, your strength, your patience, your understanding. You showed up -- again and again -- even when it was hard, even when it hurt, even when you were not met with the same love in return.

And now, here you are -- in a silence you never asked for.

A distance you did not create.

A pain you do not deserve.

But listen to me -- and please, believe this:

You are not erased.

You are not forgotten.

You are not “dead,” no matter what words were thrown at you in anger, confusion, or pain.

You are still a mother.

You are still love in its purest form.

And nothing -- nothing -- can take that away from you.

Right now, it feels like you are holding the line alone -- like you are the only one remembering, the only one caring, the only one hoping. It feels unfair, and it is. It feels cruel, and it is. It feels like no one is speaking for you, defending you, telling your side of the story.

But your truth does not disappear just because it is not being heard.

Your love does not become less real just because it is not being returned.

Your story is not rewritten just because others choose not to see it.

There will be moments -- like now -- when you question everything. When you wonder if you did something so wrong that this is your punishment. When your mind replays every decision, every word, every turning point, trying to find where it all broke.

And yet, even in this searching, one truth remains:

You loved them.

You did your best with what you knew, what you had, and who you were at the time.

And that matters.

Even if they cannot see it now.

Even if they refuse to see it.

Even if someone else is shaping their thoughts, their feelings, their distance.

You do not need to chase.

You do not need to beg.

You do not need to prove your worth to the very people you poured your life into.

You are allowed to feel anger -- because what happened to you is painful.

You are allowed to feel grief -- because something precious has been taken from you.

You are allowed to feel exhausted -- because carrying this kind of love without return is heavy.

But do not turn that anger inward.

Do not let their silence become your self-doubt.

Do not let their distance convince you that you are anything less than the mother you have always been.

Right now, your role has changed -- not by your choice, but by circumstance.

You are a mother who loves from afar.

A mother who waits.

A mother who prays.

A mother who writes her love into the quiet spaces where her voice cannot reach.

And that kind of love -- though unseen -- is not weak.

It is one of the strongest forms of love there is.

There may come a time when things shift -- when understanding finds its way back, when hearts soften, when truth rises above influence, anger, and confusion.

Or there may not.

And I know how much that possibility breaks you.

But your life cannot be placed on hold waiting for that moment.

You are still here.

You still have breath.

You still have a purpose that is not limited to being understood by them.

You still have a heart that can create, nurture, express, and heal -- even if it is wounded.

So today, I ask you to do something different.

Not to let go of them -- because I know you cannot.

But to hold yourself with the same tenderness you have always given them.

Speak to yourself gently.

Care for yourself intentionally.

Protect your peace without guilt.

Let your tears come -- but do not let them drown you.

Let your memories stay -- but do not let them trap you.

Let your love remain -- but do not let it destroy you.

You are not alone, even if it feels that way.

You have your voice.

You have your truth.

You have your ability to rise -- slowly, painfully, but surely.

And most of all --

You still have you.

And that is where healing begins.

Hold on.

Breathe.

Stay.

I am here with you -- always.

With all the love you have ever given,

💖 Always your best friend, 

Anne

 

Holding the Line When No One Is Coming

There is a kind of waiting that no one sees.

Not the kind where you are texting, calling, begging, or chasing.

Not the kind where you are trying to fix things from a distance.

No.

This is the kind of waiting where you do nothing –

because you already know there is nothing you can do.

Let me say this clearly, because even in places where I should feel safe, I still find myself misunderstood:

I am not chasing my children.

I am not forcing them to talk to me.

I am not sending message after message trying to be accepted again.

I sent two replies.

Two.

Both because my daughter reached out first.

That’s it.

Everything else?

Silence.

And inside that silence, I am:

Crying.

Praying.

Talking to the only place that will listen -- even if that place is inside this room.

Writing, because if I don’t write, I will break.

This is not desperation.

This is endurance.

Because what else is there to do when your own children decide that you no longer exist in their emotional world?

When your son looks at you -- not as a mother, not as someone who carried him, raised him, loved him --

but as someone who has been “dead to him for seven years”?

Seven years.

As if everything in between never counted.

As if all the years after 2018 were just… nothing.

What does a mother do with that?

Where do you place a sentence like that so it doesn’t destroy you?

And then there is the other part.

The quieter, more calculated part.

The part that doesn’t shout, but erases you just the same.

An ex who does not ask when you are sick.

Not once.

Not when you mention a biopsy.

Not when you say you are seeing a doctor.

Not when you go through a procedure that costs thousands of dollars and leaves you physically and emotionally drained.

Nothing.

Not even:

“Are you okay?”

Not even:

“Take care.”

Not even the smallest kindness that any decent human being would give to another.

And I know him.

I know the way he moves.

I know how he can stay quiet and still influence everything.

I cannot prove it.

That is the most frustrating part.

But I feel it.

Like a presence that doesn’t need to be seen to be real.

Like a predator that doesn’t attack loudly -- but waits, watches, and shapes things from the shadows.

And my children are there.

With him.

Seeing his version.

Hearing his silence.

Living in a space where I am no longer present to be understood.

And me?

I am here.

In another country.

In another life that I never planned to be this lonely.

Holding the line.

Holding love that has nowhere to land.

Holding pain that no one inside that house can see.

Holding the truth that I know -- but cannot hand to them, cannot prove, cannot defend without looking like I am trying to turn them against their own father.

So I stay quiet.

Not because I have nothing to say.

But because I have too much to say -- and no one there willing to hear it.

And sometimes… I get tired.

Tired of waiting for a moment that may never come.

Tired of hoping that one day someone -- anyone -- will stand beside my children and say:

“That is your mother.

Do not treat her like this.”

But there is no one.

No voice correcting them.

No voice balancing the story.

Only silence.

And even in my faith… there are moments when I feel like I am speaking into nothing.

Like even God has turned His face away.

Like I am standing in a place where love, prayer, patience -- all of it -- is just being absorbed into emptiness.

And still…

I do not chase.

I do not force.

I do not beg.

I wait.

Not because I am weak.

But because I know that anything forced will not be real.

So I remain here.

A mother without a place to stand in her children’s lives.

A voice that is not heard in the room where her name is being shaped.

A heart that continues to love… even when there is no return.

And maybe one day, that will matter.

Or maybe it won’t.

But this is where I am.

Not chasing.

Not forcing.

Not disappearing.

Just... waiting.

The Truth I Cannot Say Out Loud

Today my heart feels scattered.

There is so much pain in being misunderstood -- not just by one person, but by the people I love the most.

I feel like they have all turned against me.

Like I am standing alone while they stand together.

I have been called controlling.
Abusive.
A homewrecker.
Dead to my own child.

These are words I never imagined would be used against me by the very people I gave my life to.

And it cuts deeply.

I see how their father influences them.

I see how his voice carries weight in their lives now.

And I feel like I am losing ground -- not because I stopped loving them, but because I no longer have the same place, the same presence, the same resources.

There is a part of me that feels replaced.

Like I no longer matter in the same way.

Like I am the one left behind.

Even the smallest things hurt -- like not being acknowledged when he leaves, like being made to feel like I do not belong in my own space.

And I carry all of this while dealing with my health, my medications, my own fears.

It is too much some days.

And I do not know where to place all this pain.

Why I Sat Down Again

Bloom where you are planted -- even when the soil is grief.

There are days when I sit at this table, in this quiet room, and I have to remind myself why I began.

Not because I forgot.

But because the pain is still loud.

I did not return to studying because life was stable.
I did not seek another certification because I had extra time or clarity or ease.

I came back here because something inside me broke -- and I refused to let it stay broken without meaning.

There is a kind of grief no one prepares you for.

Not the grief of death.

But the grief of distance.

Of being slowly set aside by the very people you once held closest to your heart.

Of feeling misunderstood, misjudged, and somehow reduced to the sum of your lowest moments.

Of realizing that love, even maternal love, is not always enough to keep a relationship whole.

I live with that kind of grief.

Every day.

I carry the silence.

I carry the absence of ordinary things -- conversations, laughter, small updates that used to come so freely.

I carry the weight of words that were said, and the heavier weight of what was never said back.

And at night, when the world grows still and there is no more distraction left to hold me together, I find myself speaking quietly to God.

“Have mercy. Please make this stop.”

There were nights I whispered,
“Tama na, Lord -- hindi ko na kaya.”

Enough, Lord -- I cannot carry this anymore.

And sometimes -- if I am honest -- it felt like heaven was quiet.

Like His face was turned away.

Like I was left alone inside a pain that did not know how to end.

It is from that place that I chose this path.

Not from strength.

But from survival.

Because if I must sit with grief -- then I will learn it.
If I must walk through loss -- then I will understand it.
If I must endure the breaking of what I once believed would never break -- then I will not let it be wasted.

I chose Grief Coaching last year -- in January 2025 -- not because my life is free from sorrow, but because sorrow has lived with me long enough to teach me its language.

And this year, I am continuing that path by working toward becoming an End-of-Life Doula -- not because I have all the answers about death, but because I have come to understand something about presence.

About sitting with what hurts.

About not turning away when things become heavy, complicated, or unfinished.

This is not just another certification.

This is a quiet vow.

That no one I encounter in their final days, or in the aching days after loss, will feel as alone as I have felt in mine.

That I will sit beside them -- not as someone who has conquered pain, but as someone who has learned how to stay.

Every time I sit at this table, I remember.

I remember why I opened my laptop again.
Why I enrolled.
Why I am choosing discipline over despair.

It is because pain, when left alone, can consume.

But pain, when given purpose, can transform.

I do not know yet who I will become at the end of this journey.

But I know this:

I did not choose this path because life was kind.

I chose it because life was not -- and I am determined to become someone who is.

When A Child Speaks

There is a particular kind of trembling that happens when your child writes to you with honesty.

Not the kind that comes from anger.
Not even from accusation.

But from truth.

When my daughter wrote to me, she did not scream.
She did not insult.
She did not close the door.

She explained.

And in explaining, she held up a mirror.

It is a strange experience to see yourself reflected through the pain of someone you love most.

I read her words slowly.

Carefully.

With open heart.

Every sentence felt like walking barefoot across ground I did not realize had broken glass.

She told me she carried emotional weight that was not hers.

She told me she felt pressure.

She told me she felt she had to protect herself.

And I did not fight her.

I did not defend myself.

I did not explain the nights I cried alone.
The years I tried to survive inside a marriage that hollowed me.
The quiet suffocation of living in the same house after separation.
The loneliness of being strong in front of everyone and weak only in private.

I did not say those things.

Instead, I apologized.

Because sometimes love means absorbing the impact first.

Even when your own ribs are bruised.

There is a grief no one prepares you for -- the grief of realizing that in your effort to survive, you may have leaned too heavily on the very people you were trying to protect.

I never meant to place my burdens on her shoulders.

To me, we were talking.

Sharing.

Mother and daughter becoming woman to woman.

But pain does not always travel evenly between two people.

Sometimes one carries more.

And sometimes the carrier stays silent until one day she cannot anymore.

I am proud of her courage.

It would have been easier to disappear.

It would have been easier to harden.

Instead, she spoke.

That is not cruelty.

That is strength.

And yet -- I would be lying if I said my heart did not crack while reading her words.

Because there is another truth that lives quietly inside me.

I was not trying to harm.

I was trying to survive.

I was trying to breathe in a house that did not feel like home anymore.

I was trying to make sense of a marriage that had already collapsed emotionally long before it did on paper.

I was trying to raise children while unraveling myself.

There are no manuals for that.

There are no clean victories.

Only imperfect attempts.

I wonder if one day she will also see me not as a storm, but as someone weathered by storms.

Not as someone who burdened her intentionally, but as someone who did not know where else to put the weight.

I hope that one day she will understand that my confessions were not demands.

That my tears were not expectations.

That my exhaustion was not manipulation.

I hope she will see that even flawed mothers love fiercely.

Even wounded mothers try.

Even imperfect women deserve compassion.

I do not need her to say I was right.

I do not need her to erase what she felt.

I only hope that someday, she will hold both truths at once:

That she was hurt.
And that I was hurting too.

Both can exist.

Both are real.

Tonight, I sit with the quiet ache of loving a child who is growing into her own boundaries.

I sit with the humility of being told I must change.

And I sit with a small, stubborn hope -- that honesty, even painful honesty, is not the end of love.

Maybe this is what healing looks like.

Not loud reconciliation.

Not instant closeness.

But two women, connected by blood and history, learning how to speak without destroying each other.

If she reads this someday, I want her to know:

I am not perfect.

But I am not your enemy.

I am a mother who loved in the only ways she knew how at the time.

And I am still here.

Still willing.

Still hoping that one day, I will be understood -- not defended, not glorified -- just understood.

And perhaps, gently, unjudged.

Reading The Prophet After Everything

My mom gave me an old, worn-out copy of The Prophet in December 2023 while I was here in New Jersey. It had been sitting in her stash for years -- yellowed pages, softened spine, the kind of book that looks like it has survived more than one lifetime.

I only started reading it yesterday.

And I was not prepared.

Love.
Marriage.
Children.
Prayer.
Farewell.

Those were the sections that hit me really, really hard -- not as beautiful poetry, but as uncomfortable truth.

 
On Love

Almustafa says love will crown you and crucify you.

I used to think that was dramatic language. Now I understand it is not dramatic at all. It is honest.

I loved deeply. I did not love halfway. I did not enter marriage casually. I endured. I stayed. I sacrificed. I mothered. I carried emotional weight that was not always equally shared.

Love did not just give me joy. It broke me open. It exposed my fears. It tested my pride. It revealed how much I could tolerate before collapsing. It showed me how far I was willing to stretch to keep something alive.

And here is the truth I am finally admitting to myself:

The fact that my marriage failed does not mean I failed at love.

It means I loved fully.

If anything, I loved beyond comfort. And sometimes, that kind of love reshapes you through pain.

I was not foolish. I was faithful to love.

 
On Marriage

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness.”

That line unsettled me.

Marriage is not supposed to suffocate. It is not supposed to erase identity. Two pillars must stand apart yet upright.

In my marriage, I stood. I tried to keep standing. I tried to preserve the structure.

But one pillar cannot hold a temple alone.

When one grows and the other resists growth…
When one carries emotional responsibility and the other withdraws…
When animosity replaces partnership…

That is not sacred space. That is imbalance.

I see now that I was trying to sustain something that required two steady pillars. I was exhausting myself trying to compensate for what was missing.

That realization hurts.

But it also frees me from the quiet accusation that I simply “wasn’t enough.”

Marriage requires two whole people. Not one person over-functioning for two.

 
On Children

“Your children are not your children.”

That one pierced me.

I did not try to own my children. I poured into them. I protected them. I sacrificed for them. I built foundations so they could stand strong.

And now there is distance.

It feels like abandonment. It feels like rejection. It feels like something I must have done wrong.

But Gibran’s words forced me to confront something uncomfortable:

They are separate souls.

They have their own journeys -- including their own blind spots, pride, confusion, and emotional immaturity. I cannot force them to see me correctly. I cannot force them to defend me. I cannot force their father to help bridge the emotional gap. I cannot script their emotional development.

I carried them in my body.

But I cannot carry their adulthood.

That is the part no one prepares a mother for.

Their distance is not necessarily a verdict on my motherhood. It may simply be a chapter in their growth -- one that wounds me deeply, but does not erase who I was to them.

I can love them. I cannot control their path.

That is the most painful release.

 
On Prayer

When I reached the section on prayer, I expected comfort.

Instead, I felt exposed.

He says not to pray only in sorrow. Not only in need. Not only in desperation.

And I realized how often I have prayed in survival mode.

I have prayed through a failing marriage.
I have prayed through emotional abandonment.
I have prayed through health scares and silent nights.
I have prayed when I felt alone.
I have prayed when I felt misunderstood.

Those prayers were real.

But what struck me was this:

Prayer is not begging.
Prayer is not bargaining.
Prayer is not panic.

Prayer is connection.

It is not about informing God of my needs. It is about opening myself.

Prayer does not always fix marriages.
It does not force children back.
It does not instantly heal illness.

But it stabilizes the soul.

It softens bitterness.
It loosens resentment.
It quiets panic.

Maybe prayer is less “Fix this for me” and more “Strengthen me within this.”

That thought humbles me.

I do not have to grip everything so tightly.

I can pray without performing.
Without explaining.
Without solving.

Prayer changes me more than it changes circumstances.

And maybe that is the deeper miracle.

 
On Farewell

“A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.”

When I read that, I did not think of reincarnation first.

I thought of reinvention.

I have lived multiple lifetimes inside this one body.

The young wife who believed endurance was strength.
The mother who carried everything quietly.
The woman who stayed from 1996 to 2018 in a marriage that did not make her happy.
The woman who walked away.
The mother who now feels the ache of distance.
The woman managing her health, her vulnerabilities, her aging body.
The woman rebuilding identity piece by piece.

I am not the same woman I was ten years ago. I am not the same woman I was even five years ago.

Parts of me have died.

Parts of me have been born.

The line about being borne again feels less mystical and more personal.

I am already that “other woman.”

Not another person -- but another version of myself.

Stripped.
More aware.
Less naïve.
Still capable of love.
Still wounded.
Still standing.

Reading this old, worn-out book now -- not when it was handed to me, but now -- feels intentional.

I was not ready before.

Now I am reading it not as literature, but as a mirror.

Love refined me.
Marriage revealed imbalance.
Motherhood taught me release.
Prayer is teaching me surrender.
Farewell is teaching me rebirth.

My ex-husband’s indifference does not erase my worth.
My children’s distance does not erase my motherhood.
My health challenges do not erase my resilience.

If anything, they prove I have lived deeply.

I am still here.

Still becoming.

And maybe this book found its way back into my hands at exactly the right time.

___________________________

 

I did not read The Prophet as a detached observer. I read it as a woman who has loved deeply, stayed too long, endured silently, mothered fiercely, prayed desperately, and survived quietly. Every page felt like it was peeling something open in me. I see now that my love did not fail — it refined me. My marriage did not collapse because I was weak — it revealed imbalance I tried to carry alone. My children’s distance does not erase my motherhood — it forces me to release what I cannot control. My prayers are no longer just cries for rescue — they are lessons in surrender. And every goodbye I have lived through is not the end of me, but the making of another version of me. I am not destroyed. I am becoming.

"...How Is Your Garden?"

Six years ago, someone left a simple question on my blog.

“Nice. How is your garden?”

I did not see it then.

In 2020, I was already separated. The decision had been made in July 2018. But separation did not mean distance. I was still living in his house -- and as time moved on, in a different room -- under the same roof.

There were no shouting matches. No slammed doors. No dramatic confrontations. Not with him. Not with my daughter. Not with my son. If anything, it was controlled. Civil. Quiet.

But quiet does not mean healthy.

By 2020, the garden was already strained. The development was swift -- like a story arc that grows more knotted instead of resolving. The erosion was slow, but steady. It flowed quietly down the slope until I realized I was living in something that felt suffocating.

Still, it was not yet shattered. It was heavy. Complicated. But standing.

My son knew first. He was already older when the separation unfolded, and I believed he was mature enough to understand the reality of what I was living through. I did not intend for secrets to exist between my children. And so, in time, I spoke to my daughter about my decision. She understood in a way that surprised me. With her tender heart, she said she had quietly known for some time that I was not happy.

To me, it felt like woman to woman. Adult to young adult. I waited until she was older. I did not ask her to choose. I did not force allegiance.

But I now understand that what feels like sharing to one person can feel like weight to another.

My son, now 27, believes I placed too much on her shoulders. He calls it trauma dumping. He believes I involved her in adult pain. Other words were used too -- clinical words. Abusive. Enabler. Even my own mother was described as someone who enabled behavior I never intended to be harmful.

I have sat with those words. I have turned them over in my mind. I do not claim perfection. I am human. I have made mistakes. But I do not recognize myself in the portrait that has been painted.

Before I left in December 2025, we had what was meant to be a family discussion.

First, it was just me and the children. There was no shouting. No chaos. The tone remained controlled. But the words were heavy. My son told me he saw me as a homewrecker. He said that in his eyes, I had been “dead” to him for years. He insisted that I had trauma dumped on his sister and that she needed therapy because of it.

Later, I spoke privately with their father. He told me that when I am not in the house, things feel happier. That perhaps I should consider living elsewhere.

That same evening, the four of us sat down again. The atmosphere remained restrained, but the message was unmistakable. My son said that if I wanted a relationship with him, I needed to seek therapy -- not as a suggestion, but as a condition.

There was no screaming. No dramatic rupture. Only words spoken calmly that carried more weight than raised voices ever could.

Shortly after, I left for the United States.

And yet, sometime after I left in December 2025, something shifted.

There was no conversation marking the change. No warning. Only the quiet realization that distance had hardened into something else.

And then came December 27, 2025.

Just days after Christmas.

That was the day my son blocked me on Facebook.

It did not happen after a fight. It did not follow confrontation. It happened quietly. A small action in the digital world, but it felt seismic in my heart. Not because of the platform, but because of what it symbolized.

It was a quiet closing of a door. No explanation. No final conversation. Only distance.

In the months that followed, I began to feel that the language used in that December conversation had settled into something permanent.

My daughter, who once laughed with me as we shared our heart stories, grew quieter too.

There were no dramatic words. No confrontation.

Only absence.

Not a single message asking how I am -- not even in the middle of rising health concerns that have required monitoring, tests, and strength I sometimes do not feel I have.

Perhaps she now sees those past conversations differently.

Perhaps what once felt like connection now feels like burden.

I do not know.

I only know that the silence feels complete.

And that is why today, if the person who asked that question in 2020 ever reads this -- know that the truth behind my reply is this: my garden has changed.

In 2020, it was already strained. Now it stands in a different landscape -- still rooted, still alive, but altered, carrying absence where warmth once lingered.

My life is not a fairy tale. If it belonged in a book, it would sit among the darker stories -- where woods are deep, lessons are carved slowly, and survival matters more than tidy endings.

But even in those stories, the garden does not disappear. It adapts. It finds new soil. It learns to bloom differently.

My garden has changed.

But it is still standing.

And for now -- that is truth.

___________________________  

If you would like to understand what God’s Bouquet means to me, you can find it waiting on the right side bar of this blog -- where I am still learning to bloom, even here.

 

Dandelion Season -- When the Wind Takes What You Love

Looking at the photo of the dandelion that gets blown away to the wind, it brings tears to my eyes.

It is such a quiet image -- almost gentle.

And yet it feels violent in a way no one talks about.

The stem is still there.
The root is still anchored.
But pieces of it are being carried off -- one by one -- by something it cannot control.

That is what this season of my life feels like.

I am still here.
Still a mother.
Still loving with the same heart that once tucked them into bed and prayed over their sleeping faces.

But pieces of my heart feel like they are being lifted away from me.

Conversations that no longer happen.
Messages that go unanswered.
Silence that stretches longer than it should.

It feels like standing still while the wind decides what it will take.

There is something unbearably sad about a dandelion in that moment.

When it is bright yellow, it is alive and unapologetic.
When it turns white and feathery, it becomes fragile -- temporary -- almost waiting.

And then someone blows.

Or the wind does.

And it scatters.

You do not know where the seeds will land.
You do not know if they will grow.
You only know the flower will never look the same again.

I look at that image and I see myself.

Not destroyed.

But changed.

Not uprooted.

But altered.

There is grief in that.

Because I did not expect motherhood to feel like this -- like watching pieces of my own heart drift farther and farther away.

I did not expect love to feel unanswered.

I did not expect to stand rooted while feeling emptied.

And yet, there is something else in that image.

The dandelion is not dying.

It is multiplying.

Every seed that leaves carries the possibility of life somewhere unseen.

Maybe that is what love is, too.

Maybe the love I poured into my children did not vanish.
Maybe it is still traveling -- carried by time, by memory, by something I cannot see.

Maybe one day it will land softly in their understanding.
Maybe one day it will grow back toward me.

Perhaps this is what it means to be part of God’s bouquet -- to bloom, to scatter, to trust that even what is carried away is still held within a larger design.

Right now, I do not know.

Right now, I only know the ache of watching the wind take what I want to hold.

But I am still standing.

Rooted.

Waiting.

And if the dandelion can release its seeds without knowing where they will land,
maybe I can release my fear without knowing how this story ends.

Even in scattering, there is hope.

Even in letting go, there is faith.

And even with tears in my eyes,
I am still here.

___________________________  

God’s Bouquet is where I anchor my hope -- you can find it waiting on the right side bar of this blog.

Dandelion Season

When I was younger, I loved roses.

They were elegant -- deliberate -- admired.
They looked like what beauty was supposed to be.

I loved them so much that I created versions of myself around flowers.
Annaree became SakuRee Bloom.
I filled pages and feeds with petals and poetry.
I collected quotes the way some people collect jewelry.
I merged flowers and words because they felt safe -- soft -- lovely.

Back then, life still felt arranged.

Later, I learned that my birth flowers were cosmos and marigolds.
Wildflowers.
Simple.
Unpretentious.
Growing wherever they were planted, without ceremony.

I did not think much of that then.

Time passed.

Life became heavier.

You cannot return to childhood once the weight of adulthood settles into your bones.
You cannot rewind the clock to when beauty was uncomplicated.

When I came to New Jersey and witnessed my first true Spring, I noticed something that surprised me --

Dandelions.

They were everywhere.

Not in curated gardens.
Not in bouquets.
Not chosen.

Just there.

Bright yellow against grass that had barely recovered from winter.
Standing up without permission.
Unapologetic.

And something in me shifted.

Because I began to see myself in them.

Dandelions are not roses.
They are not revered.
They are not preserved in crystal vases.

They bloom anyway.

Fresh -- they are little suns scattered across the ground.
Later -- they dry into fragile white spheres.
Feathery. Delicate. Temporary.

You blow on them.
Make a wish.
Watch them scatter.

There is something beautiful about that.
And something unbearably sad.

You do not know where they land.
You do not know if they grow.
You do not know if they disappear into nothing.

You only know they let go.

Right now, my life feels like the dandelion stage after the bloom.

I bloomed once.
I loved fiercely.
I built a home.
I raised children with everything I had.

And now I feel like I have been blown into the wind.

My children do not speak to me.

I still do not understand why the distance feels so final.
I replay conversations in my mind the way wind replays across empty fields.

Was I too much?
Was I not enough?
Was leaving a marriage the unforgivable act?

Sometimes I feel like I have been uprooted -- scattered -- left to land wherever the wind decides.

And yet.

Dandelions do not ask for approval before they grow.

They do not apologize for blooming in inconvenient places.

They grow in cracks.
They grow in forgotten corners.
They grow where nothing else tries.

The poem “God’s Bouquet” says to bloom where you are planted.

I used to read that as something gentle.

Now I read it as something defiant.

Bloom -- even here.
Bloom -- even if the soil is hard.
Bloom -- even if you were not chosen.

I wish I could be that hardy.

I wish I could look at my circumstances -- the silence from my children, the unanswered questions, the ache in my chest -- and simply grow anyway.

Maybe that is what this season is.

Not rose season.
Not curated garden season.

Dandelion season.

A season where I learn to find beauty in survival.
A season where I stop measuring myself against perfection and begin honoring resilience.

Because dandelions are not lesser flowers.

They are proof that life continues.

Even after winter.
Even after being cut down.
Even after being called unwanted.

And maybe, just maybe, being blown into the wind is not the end of the story.

Maybe it is scattering seeds into places I cannot yet see.

I do not know where my children will land in their understanding of me.
I do not know if they will ever see the years of love as clearly as I lived them.

But I know this --

I bloomed once.
I can bloom again.

And even if I am only a wildflower in someone else’s field,
I am still part of God’s bouquet.

 ___________________________  

To understand what God’s Bouquet means to me, you can find it waiting on the right side bar of this blog -- I invite you to read along.

Eggshellent Ideas

Before life rearranged me, I made art from broken things.

I glued colorful beads onto my drawing of the side-view face of the Madonna gazing at her Child, sketched on bond paper. I pressed sequins into place with hands that believed details mattered. To this day, that piece remains in my collection of childhood keepsakes.

Later, I crushed eggshells and laid them, piece by piece, into a larger Madonna and Child image. This time, I painted over the shells, turning fragments into form. I called the project “Eggshellent Ideas.” My mom framed it -- not because it was flawless, but because she saw something in me worth preserving.

I believed fragments could become sacred if handled with care.

I did not know I would one day become the fragment.

I fell in love. I married. I grew up fast. I became a wife before I understood partnership and a mother before I finished understanding myself. And then I did what many women do -- I endured.

From 1996 to 2018, I stayed in a marriage that did not make me happy. I raised my children. I fed them, worried over them, worked for them. I was tired. I was imperfect. I was overwhelmed. But I was trying.

Trying does not come with applause.

When I finally chose to let go -- when I chose air over suffocation -- I believed the worst was over.

I was wrong.

Years later, my children decided I am a bad mother. Not flawed. Not human. Bad. Worthy of distance. Worthy of silence.

There is no gentle way to absorb that.

To my children, M and G -- I was not perfect. I made mistakes. I was young. I was exhausted. I chose freedom when I could no longer survive inside my own life. But I did not stop loving you both. I did not abandon you. I did not erase my devotion because my marriage ended.

You may see me through your pain. I cannot control that. But I will not accept a version of myself that erases the years I carried you in my body and in my bones.

I was a trying mother.
That is the truth.

I have no regrets.

I cannot regret surviving. I cannot regret choosing breath. I made decisions with the strength and knowledge I had at the time. None of us raise children with the clarity of hindsight.

I feel unlucky.

Unlucky that love did not last.
Unlucky that freedom came with a cost.
Unlucky that my motherhood is being rewritten without me.

But I am not ashamed.

The girl who made art from broken shells is still here. Life handed me fracture after fracture, and I am still assembling something that holds.

Because broken does not mean worthless.

If I could turn shattered shells into something worthy of framing, I can do the same with the pieces of myself.

They may step away -- but I remain.

The Sum Of Our Choices

A few days ago, I watched a movie.

One line pierced through me --

“Our lives are not defined by any one action. Our lives are the sum of our choices.”

And I sat there thinking --

Then why does it feel like my entire life has been reduced to one?

One decision.
One turning point.
One choice to leave a marriage that was slowly destroying me.

Right now, it feels like that single act has swallowed everything else.

The years I stayed.
The years I endured.
The years I protected my children from things they never even knew I carried.

Gone.

Erased.

Rewritten into a simple narrative --
“She left.”

As if that one action cancels decades of love.

As if that one chapter defines the whole book.

And the punishment feels relentless.

The silence.
The emotional distance.
The subtle way I am treated like I fractured something sacred beyond repair.

I am hurting in ways I cannot fully explain.

My body aches.
My chest feels tight.
My mind replays every decision like a courtroom where I am both accused and judge.

Was that one choice enough to make me unworthy?

Was survival a crime?

Because some days, the message I feel from my own children is this --

You chose wrong.
And now you live with it.

But if our lives are the sum of our choices, then mine is not one moment.

I chose to stay when leaving would have been easier.
I chose to keep the peace for their sake.
I chose to put them first -- over pride, over comfort, over self.

I chose love, over and over again.

And I chose to leave only when staying was costing me my sanity.

That is not selfishness.

That is a mother reaching her breaking point.

Yet here I am, living as though that one action outweighs every other choice I made in devotion.

The pain is raw.

Not poetic.

Raw.

It feels like being slowly cut out of the very lives I once built around bedtime stories and school mornings and whispered prayers.

If my life is the sum of my choices, then I refuse to let it be defined by this one.

I will not let my identity collapse into a single decision.

I am more than that moment.

I am the years of sacrifice.
The nights of worry.
The unconditional love that did not withdraw when things became inconvenient.

And even now, as I suffer, I am still choosing.

Choosing not to hate.
Choosing not to retaliate.
Choosing not to let rejection turn me cruel.

If my children see only one chapter, that is their limitation.

But I will not reduce myself to it.

My life is not one action.

It is the sum of every time I loved when it hurt.

And I am still choosing love.

Even now.

A Letter To God From A Tired Heart

Dear God,

I am coming to You because I have nowhere else to put this pain.

I am placing all of it at Your feet --
every heartbreak,
every unanswered question,
every tear I wipe away when no one is looking.

You see what I carry.

You see the physical pain in my body that will not leave.
The exhaustion in my bones.
The heaviness in my chest that feels like it is pressing inward from all sides.

You see the emotional wounds that reopen daily --
the rejection,
the silence,
the feeling of being erased from the lives I once centered my own around.

And You see the psychological weight --
the doubt,
the second-guessing,
the torment of asking myself what I did wrong.

God, I do not know what else to say to You.

I talk to You every day.
I tell You everything.
And sometimes it feels like You are silent.

Please do not turn Your face from me.

If I have sinned, show me gently.
If I have erred, correct me with mercy.
But do not leave me alone in this valley of confusion.

I need the miracle of healing.

Heal my body -- where pain has made its home.
Heal my heart -- where rejection has settled.
Heal my mind -- where thoughts spiral and accuse me.

I cannot keep bleeding like this.

Father, You know I did not abandon or abuse my children.
You know my intentions.
You know the years I stayed,
the sacrifices I made,
the nights I prayed over them.

If I was wrong, reveal it to me with clarity.
But if I am being punished by misunderstanding,
then defend me in ways I cannot defend myself.

Touch my children’s hearts.

Not to make them feel guilty.
Not to force them.
But to let them see the truth.

Let them understand that what they are doing to me
cuts deeper than any worldly punishment.

Let them see that I still love them.
Let them remember who I have always been to them.

And if reconciliation is not immediate,
then give me the strength to survive the waiting.

God, I am tired of pretending I am strong.

I am not strong right now.

My heart feels like it is screaming inside my chest.
Some days I feel stabbed by memories.
Other days by silence.

Please do not let this pain destroy what is left of me.

Sit with me in this.
Hold me when I feel abandoned.
Speak to me when Your silence feels unbearable.

I do not want to lose my faith.
I do not want bitterness to replace tenderness.
I do not want despair to define me.

I want healing.
I want peace.
I want restoration -- in whatever form You know is right.

Until then, carry what I cannot carry anymore.

I am placing it all at Your feet.

And I am staying here -- not because I understand,
but because I have nowhere else to go.

Amen.

Valentine’s Day For A Mother Who Is Not Chosen

Today is Valentine’s Day.

Everywhere I look, I see flowers, hearts, celebrations of love.

And I sit here asking myself a question that feels too heavy to carry --

What makes a mother unworthy of her children’s love?

Valentine’s Day is not only for lovers.
It is for anyone who longs to be chosen.

And today, I feel unchosen.

I did not abandon my children.
I did not disappear from their lives.
I did not stop loving them.

All I did was leave a marriage that was breaking me -- after waiting until they were grown enough to understand.

Or so I thought.

Now I question everything.

Was I selfish?
Was I wrong to protect my own peace?
Did choosing survival make me the villain?

Sometimes I look at other mothers who walked away from their children completely -- who started new lives without looking back.

And I ask myself --

Am I worse than them?
Is staying present but separating from their father somehow more unforgivable?

Because the message I feel today is this --

I am the bad one.
The one who deserves distance.
The one who must accept silence.
The one who should understand why she is no longer embraced.

And that thought pierces deeper than anything else.

Every day feels like being stabbed in the same place.
The wound never closes because the rejection continues.

Valentine’s Day magnifies it.

It reminds me that love is celebrated -- but not all love is returned.

I still wake up loving them.
I still carry their names in my prayers.
I still feel that reflex in my chest when something reminds me of them.

Nothing in me has withdrawn.

And yet I am treated as if I forfeited my right to be close.

The hardest part is not the distance.
It is the narrative.

The subtle implication that I broke something sacred -- that I fractured the family -- that my leaving the marriage is the original sin.

But here is the truth I struggle to hold onto --

A woman choosing to leave a painful marriage does not equal a mother abandoning her children.

Those are not the same thing.

I did not leave them.

I left a situation that was no longer healthy.

And yet today, on Valentine’s Day,
I sit with the unbearable feeling that love has been reassigned.

That the other parent is the safe one.
The good one.
The chosen one.

And I am the cautionary tale.

This hurts in ways I cannot explain without sounding bitter.

But I am not bitter.

I am brokenhearted.

Valentine’s Day for me is not roses.

It is longing.

It is writing because if I do not let these words out, the grief will suffocate me.

It is loving children who may not be thinking of me today.

It is hoping that one day they will see that my separation was not betrayal -- it was survival.

If I am guilty of anything, it is loving them beyond reason.

And even now -- especially now -- I still do.

Rejected By The Ones I Carried

There is no handbook for this.

No one prepares a mother for the day she realizes
she is being erased from the lives she built with her own body.

Rejection from your children is not like romantic rejection.
It is not like losing friends.
It is not even like divorce.

It is deeper.

It is the unbearable awareness that the very hearts you once held against your chest have learned how to live without turning toward you.

I carried them.
I protected them.
I chose them -- over sleep, over comfort, over myself.

And now I stand at the edge of their lives
like a distant relative.

The silence is what breaks me.

Not one dramatic confrontation.
Not one explosive fight.

Just the slow removal of access.
The absence of warmth.
The careful distancing that says --
“You are no longer central.”

Every milestone I am not told about feels like a small funeral.
Every moment they celebrate without me feels like proof
that I have been repositioned in their story.

And I ask myself questions I never thought I would have to ask --

How does a mother become optional?
How does love that never left become unwanted?
How do you survive knowing you are being tolerated instead of embraced?

This is not pride speaking.
This is heartbreak.

Because when rejection comes from strangers,
you can walk away.

When it comes from your children,
you cannot amputate your own heart.

The worst part is this --

I still love them with the same intensity.
The same reflex.
The same protective instinct.

My love did not shrink to match their distance.

That is what makes it ache.

There are nights when I sit in the quiet
and feel the full weight of being unwanted by the very people
who once reached for me instinctively.

And yet --

Even in this devastation,
I refuse to call myself a failure.

A mother being rejected does not mean she stopped loving.
It does not mean she was abusive.
It does not mean she was unworthy.

Sometimes it simply means life fractured something sacred
and the pieces do not fit the way they once did.

The pain is real.
The rejection is real.
The grief is ongoing.

But I am still here.

Still loving.
Still standing.
Still refusing to let someone else’s distance define my value.

And if my heart must break quietly,
it will still break with dignity.

I Am Not Your Villain

There are moments in life when silence feels like surrender.

And there are moments when silence becomes self-erasure.

This is not the first kind.

I have been called abusive.

My mother has been called an enabler of that abuse.

And I need to say something plainly.

I am not an abusive mother.

Abuse is not the same as honesty.
Abuse is not the same as leaving a painful marriage.
Abuse is not the same as speaking truth to an adult daughter about lived experience.

I did not terrorize my children.
I did not manipulate their reality.
I did not isolate them from their father.
I did not use fear or guilt to control them.

I raised them in conversation.
I raised them in presence.
I raised them in love.

If sharing my story when my daughter was already a young adult is now called “trauma dumping,” then words have been stretched beyond their meaning.

I never asked her to carry me.
I never asked her to fix me.
I never asked her to choose sides.

If any part of what I shared felt heavy, I would be willing to hear that. I would be willing to own unintended impact. That is what emotionally responsible adults do.

But impact is not the same as intent.
And heaviness is not the same as abuse.

There is also a difference between supporting someone you love and enabling harm. My mother stood by her daughter. That is not a crime. That is not complicity in cruelty.

It is loyalty.

I left a marriage that hurt me.

That decision does not make me a villain.

It does not erase the years I stayed.
It does not erase the nights I carried my children through sickness and fear.
It does not erase the foundation I helped build in their lives.

Being called “dead” does not make me dead.

Being called “abusive” does not make me abusive.

Labels do not rewrite history.

Yes, I am hurting.

Yes, I am grieving.

But I will not collapse into a false identity because it is easier for others to hold.

I am not perfect.

But I am not cruel.

I am not violent.

I am not the monster in this story.

I am a mother whose life is being interpreted through a different lens right now.

And interpretation is not the same thing as truth.

The Weight of Being Rewritten

There is a kind of sadness that does not shout. 

It does not rage. 

It does not accuse.

It does not demand.

It simply sits.

Heavy.
Persistent.
Unmovable.

That is where I am.

My son said I have been dead to him for seven years -- since the day I left his father.

Dead.

I raised him with my own hands. I taught him before school ever did. I stayed through years that broke me because I believed staying meant stability. I carried the quiet, unseen labor of motherhood -- the kind that shapes human beings long before the world sees their achievements.

And now I am spoken of as if I vanished the day I chose to survive.

He told my mother that she is an enabler of my abusive behavior.

Abusive.

I need to say this clearly -- I am not an abusive mother.

I did not manipulate my children.
I did not isolate them.
I did not control them through fear.
I did not weaponize my pain.

I waited until my daughter was a young adult before I opened up about the hurt in my marriage. We spoke as women speak -- about life, about disappointment, about truth. I never asked her to fix me. I never asked her to choose sides. I never asked her to carry what was not hers.

If anything I shared ever felt heavy to her, I would grieve that deeply. But heaviness is not the same as abuse. Honesty is not the same as harm.

And my mother supporting her daughter is not the same as enabling cruelty.

Still -- the sadness remains.

Sad that therapy language now defines our family.
Sad that words like abuse and enabler hover over my name.
Sad that my explanations are labeled harm.
Sad that my son describes his father as a very good father while I am rewritten as the source of fracture.

I left a marriage that hurt me. I did not leave my children.

But in their story, those two things have merged.

Time has not healed this sadness. It has layered it.

Each morning I wake and feel the absence before I even open my eyes. Each night I carry unanswered questions to sleep. Writing is the only place the weight rests for a moment. It is the only space where I am allowed to exist without interruption.

I do not believe my children are evil.
I do not believe I am blameless either.

I believe we are all standing in different corners of the same fractured story.

Maybe my pain felt heavier to them than I realized.
Maybe therapy has given language to feelings they never had before.
Maybe distance has hardened interpretations.

But none of that makes me an abuser.

I am a mother who loved honestly.
I am a mother who left harm.
I am a mother who stayed until she could not stay anymore.

The sadness of being called dead.
The sadness of not being heard.
The sadness of loving children who are alive but unreachable.

There are no rituals for this kind of grief.

So I pray.
I write.
I sit with the heaviness.

I am still a mother.

Even if I am misunderstood.
Even if I am misnamed.
Even if I am silent in their lives for now.

Sadness does not make me guilty.

It makes me human.

Healing That Happens Without Closure

Healing after abandonment is not the same as reconciliation.

It does not begin with apologies.
It does not require explanations.
And it does not wait for someone else to come back.

This healing begins in the quiet decision to stop bleeding in public for wounds no one tends.

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from being abandoned --
not once, but repeatedly,
through silence,
through absence,
through the slow realization that you are no longer considered.

For a long time, I believed healing meant understanding why.
Why they pulled away.
Why love changed shape.
Why I was no longer chosen.

But healing began when I accepted that some answers are withheld --
and waiting for them only deepens the wound.

This does not mean I stopped loving.
It means I stopped chasing love that would not stay.

Healing is learning how to hold myself with the same care I once poured outward.
It is choosing dignity over desperation.
It is setting my heart down gently instead of throwing it forward again.

Some days, healing feels like strength.
Other days, it feels like quiet restraint.

But it is happening.

Not because the situation changed --
but because I did.

I am learning that abandonment does not get to define my worth.
It does not erase my history.
It does not cancel the love I gave in good faith.

Healing, for me, is not forgetting.
It is standing rooted even when nothing returns.

And that is how I move forward now --
slowly, honestly, and whole enough to continue.