When the Worst Thing Already Happened and You're Still Here

Notes from the In-Between: A series about the season where life changes and you don’t yet know what comes next.

Reading this because your life feels different but you can't explain why?
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People who know me tell me I'm the strongest woman they know.

I assure you this is a title I never wanted. And I know it comes with a mix of sympathy and admiration. I don't really want either.

I didn't become this way on purpose. I became this way because things happened. Things I didn't plan for. Things I didn't see coming. Things that didn't ask permission before they changed everything.

There's no preparing for that.

There's no bracing that works. No amount of worst-case thinking that actually softens it when it arrives. You can rehearse grief in your head a thousand times and it still won't match the real thing.

It just happens. And then you're in it.

And the strangest part is that life keeps going.

The dishes are still in the sink. The car still needs gas. Someone still needs you to show up on Monday. The world doesn't stop because yours did.

So you move through it. Not because you're strong. Not because you've healed. Because there is no alternative.

You still make dinner. You answer the email. You stand in the frozen food isle and forget why you're there. You smile when someone asks how you are because the truth would take too long and they don't actually want to hear it.

You keep going. Not gracefully. Just forward.

And at some point, you realize: I'm still here.

Not the same. But still here. And something unexpected happened along the way.

You started trusting yourself.

Not in the way you did before, when trust meant everything would work out if you just tried hard enough. This is different. This is the trust that comes from knowing you walked through something you didn't think you could survive and you survived it anyway.

You see things differently now. The things that used to matter feel smaller. The things that never mattered before feel like everything. You stopped waiting for permission to listen to yourself. You stopped needing certainty before you moved.

Because you already lived through the thing that was supposed to break you. And it didn't.

It burned away the version of you who needed everything to be safe before she could be honest.

And what's left is someone who trusts her own feet on the ground. Not because the ground is stable. Because she knows she can walk on unstable ground and still find her way.

And there's something else that comes with that. Something nobody talks about.

You stop being afraid of the next thing.

Not because you think it won't come. It will. Life doesn't stop delivering once you've had your share. But you know now. You know you can take the hit and still be standing. Not unscathed. Not unchanged. But still here. Still moving. Still yours.

There is power in that.

The kind of power that doesn't come from certainty or control. It comes from having been through it and knowing in your body that you can get through it again.

Everything that happened brought you here. Not to punish you. Not to teach you a lesson. Just to show you who you actually are when the life you were holding together stops holding.

You didn't choose this. You didn't see it coming.

And you're still here. With less pretending and more presence. With less fear and more trust in the woman who made it through.

 

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Related reading from Notes from the In-Between

ONWARD - How To Move Forward When Life Has Changed

What to Do When Your Life Feels Different But You Don't Know Why

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