between worlds

So far, in my resurgence on this blog, I have only written about writing. My passion for it. My eagerness to share again. The fears of what it means for my relationship. I know that there’s a deeper truth I’m avoiding. I can feel it bubbling to the surface, and honestly? I’m terrified that if I acknowledge it, it will consume me… again.

The other day, I was driving down a familiar road, past the house I used to live in. I like to drive by and think about my time there. It wasn’t all bad and for the sake of exposure therapy, I force happy thoughts and try to rewrite the narrative. Still, I can’t help but acknowledge how, no matter what story I tell myself, I am still holding onto a secret. It’s a secret buried so deep, most days I don’t even admit it to myself.

It isolates me. It creates distance between me and my loved ones, my friends, my fiancé. But more than that, it distances me from myself. Holding it in created a schism so severe that even now, I feel as if I exist between worlds, one where I acknowledge this painful truth, and one where it never happened.

Back then, I would cry. Deep, guttural cries. The kind that shake your body, the kind that feel like your soul is trying to escape. I cried to God, begged for clarity, for forgiveness, for a way to undo what couldn’t be undone. Or at least, clarity. A sign that I did the right thing.

My unanswered prayers compounded the pain. After a lifetime of feeling in tune and aligned with my higher power, I heard nothing. I felt nothing. I was abandoned. I honestly didn’t know sadness could be that deep. I didn’t know grief could feel like drowning.

In a way, and in a desperate reach for a silver lining, I was grateful. I had gone 33 years without knowing pain like that. And yet, even as I felt like I was dying, I knew worse things were possible. It made me painfully aware of my breaking point. A strange kind of relief, and yet, utterly terrifying. How weak I felt. How incredibly fragile I must have been.

Eventually, the crying stopped. Not because the pain lessened, but because I learned to carry it differently. I had no choice but to. I taught myself to silence it, to tuck it away and hide the way it changed me. I let it settle into the background, like an ache that never fully goes away but becomes easier to ignore.

These days, I move through life as if it’s not there. And most of the time, I almost believe it. I talk a little more. I laugh. I love. I move through my days, functioning, whole. I have made it past recalibration and into a season of actively rebuilding. But there are moments…small, fleeting moments when it surges back up. When I catch my reflection and notice how my eyes still look sad and the light is holding on for dear life. When I sit in silence for too long and feel the weight of it pressing in.

I used to believe confession was the path to freedom. That speaking something aloud made it lighter & easier to bear. And if I couldn’t speak it, I would write it. Acknowledging the truth, however ugly, was how I reclaimed my power.

But this is different. I feel it in my marrow. Giving it words wouldn’t make it lighter; it would only sharpen the edges of its impossibility. Something that happened but doesn’t belong in this reality.

So I don’t say anything. I don’t write anything. I tell myself some things are better left unsaid, that some stories aren’t worth writing, and some prayers aren’t worth praying.

But I’d be lying if I said I ever stopped.

Praying, at least.

Or that I ever expected an answer.