Don't Tell Me I Need to Let Go...

Letting go doesn't come easy when you're living a life you didn't choose.

Aug 19, 2024

“Instead of telling hurting people they need to let go, ask them how it changed them. Ask them what cost has come from it. Ask them what they hope eventually happens. Letting go doesn’t come easy when you’re living a life you didn’t choose.” -Nate Postlethwait

Holy f*cking Ouch.

This quote was sent to me on Instagram the other day and it made me cry. The quick, no warning, rapid fire tears streaming down my face, my breaths becoming shallower and shallower, my heart feeling a tugging acknowledging both recognition and devastation.

Living a life you didn’t choose

This could apply to my life in several ways, obviously. I think theres a part of this in everyones life, to be honest. A day we wake up and something hurts that it shouldn’t. A phone call that never came. A text message with words that packed an insurmountable punch. A text message with words that meant nothing at all.

If I had imagined today’s life just seven years ago, I’d probably laugh at how different my future thoughts had been from my current reality. Seven years ago today we were in York, PA, saying goodbye to a friend who should’ve had so much more time to live. We were two weeks away from leaving for the Outer Banks for our wedding, and there had already been so much we’d lost that season. Not in the important sense. In the traditional sense. The opportunity to go dress shopping with friends. The bridal party that took care of the bride. A bachelorette party. An outdoor beach wedding. A true feeling of celebration.

I’ll remember the things that weren’t there, the moments that were missed, but what I’ll hold onto is the fact that the story still ended how it was supposed to. I said yes to the man of my dreams, the man who I have never doubted, the one who has taken care of me in the plethora of sickness and tried to share joy with me in the few moment’s of health. I’ll think about that first year and all the things we tried to cram in together - comedy shows and sports events and concerts and new restaurants, workout routines and travel and friends and moments that did actually feel like magic. I’ll remember those moments because they’re the only thing that can get me through these.

The second year of marriage got harder when we found out we couldn’t get pregnant without technology. The third year was blessed with our beautiful baby girl, and a global pandemic. Two very opposite series of events, reactions, emotions.

I can’t let go…

The last four years have been undeniably filled with some of the worst moments of my life. And every time I think we get to a place where I can exhale and we can reset to some sort of normal, something else breaks. Something else falls apart. Something else needs our emotional attention, our physical strength, or somewhat unwavering perseverance - something we also did not choose, but please, tell me what other option there is?

The worst part, for me, is that nearly all of the trauma, all of the things that have left me hurting, they’ve happened inside of me. They’ve been at the mercy of my own body and it’s short comings.

You can’t run away from the body you live in.

You actually can’t live without the body you’re attached to. This, for me, is where things have gotten dicey many a time.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand…

When you literally live inside of your abuser, the only way out is through. You can't change it, you can't run from it, you can't hide from it, and the only way to make it go away is to leave, on your own. But I don’t just mean leave the house or the physical space you're actively taking up. You obviously can't leave your body and stay here on earth. So how are there no options between being terrified of yourself and leaving this world completely?

While some of the trauma I endured has been at the hands of or stemming from the actions of others, most of it, the biggest pieces, have been within my body. It's been things that my body has done TO me. Not for me, or with me. But against me. It's ways that my body has harmed me, without my consciously knowing until it was too late. It's knowing that every time I exhale, I'm waiting, just waiting for another moment, for another shoe to drop.

What will break next? Where will the next pain appear? And when? How long until there's a new diagnosis, which comes with a new specialist and new medication? How long until that medication ultimately makes things worse for me? The more medical trauma I've endured, the more emergency situations I've been in which have directly been caused by my own insides, the less I trust it, the less I trust me, the less I want to stay here, standing in place, waiting to be taken down. The less I want to survive, honestly.

Everything about me has changed

Here’s what I’ve learned in the most painful ways possible. Don’t tell someone who’s hurting that what they’ve experienced is unfathomable or impossible to imagine or heartbreaking or something you’d never survive.

Don’t you realize that we didn’t have a choice? I never could’ve imaged delivering twins at home alone in the middle of the night in my bathroom to watch them die. Or being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance because of how much I was bleeding internally. I never once thought that one by one, the systems of my body would consecutively break - some of which are visible to the outside world and others of which only show up on hospital imaging.

I didn’t ever think my life would be sustained by the handfuls of pills I take multiple times a day, the IV medications I push each night, the fluids that keep me from passing out - how are those thing supposed to go away? I can’t ignore them. I fucking most certainly didn’t choose them. But if I stop listening to them, if I stop taking care of them, parenting them, taking them to the doctor and applying the treatment recommendations - I’m fairly certain my body will slowly and painfully disintegrate. No thanks. I’d like to go quickly and quietly during the night, please.

Mentally, the life I haven’t chosen has less to do with only being able to have one child (the thing that used to cause me the most devastating heartbreak in the world), and way more to do with having a body that prevents me from living out my motherhood dreams with the living daughter I do have on a daily basis.

I am afraid, all of the time.

Every obstacle I’ve overcome has been quickly followed by another, and then another.

There’s not even been enough downtime between them to start processing them, to navigate them, to work through them. To feel the hurt, and to release it. It’s just all pent up inside, because all I can do is try my hardest for the strings and the glue and the tape I’ve continually shifted around to continue somehow holding the pieces together. I feel like a walking, talking doll who not only accidentally went through the washing machine, but the dryer too, where some of my pieces have become permanently stuck together and others have been lost to the propeller in the back of the machine, where no sane person would go digging to find them, and even if they reemerged they’d be completely unusable.

There’s no way to come back from all of this. I have to believe there’s a way to emerge forward, but it won’t be the same me that ever was. I don’t know who it’ll be. She’ll have features that resemble mine, but will her brain work the same way? Will she love as hard as she used to? Will she still be scared?

There isn’t one single person on this earth that can answer these questions.

What cost has come from it?

Everything you could imagine.

My voice.

My strength.

My courage.

My patience.

My optimism.

My being the activity coordinator.

The center of our friendship group.

The benevolence budget.

My ability to hope.

My ability to do that thing mentioned above… letting go.

My understanding that there’s more out there.

That there’s more to life than this.

In nearly every way I can define it, this body has cost me everything I’ve ever had, and right now, it’s costing me everything I’ve ever wanted.

It’s made me think about leaving.

It’s made me wonder if my family would have less heartache without me.

It’s made me wonder if there will be a day when I personally have less heartache. If it’ll ever stop feeling like I’m breaking down, hitting the floor, and watching all the pieces of me shatter as people ask for more.

Ask them what they hope eventually happens.

This feels like the most important question, and the one thats most difficult to answer. It’s why I saved it for last.

I can’t change anything that’s happened. And I’d hazard to guess that I can’t prevent anything that’s already in the pipeline, coming down my way. Who knows what or how or when this will happen, but I have no doubts it will happen. And likely, more than once. Just going off of history here.

I guess what I hope eventually happens is that even though trauma will always equal tragedy, maybe sometimes moments will equal joy or fun or even memories to cherish.

I hope that the way I’ve navigated the last three years can somehow become become less devastating, less despondent, less isolating, less overstimulating, less painful and less alone. And that despite the insurmountable physical pain I often bear, I hope my daughter can see more of mommy outside of her bed, outside of her office, outside in general. That mommy has the strength and patience and stamina to play and to run around and to be everything my daughter deserves for me to be.

I hope that my daughter still wants to be my daughter 10 years down the road.

I hope that if she’s faced with a choice and she has to choose, I hope she still chooses me. I know she’s got dozens of options. She’s blessed beyond belief in the number of people who have opened their homes, their hearts, and their FaceTime buttons for her.

I hope she remembers that alongside all of those other friends, she’s here because I wanted her so badly I’d have done anything to bring her into this world. I hope even when were separate, she can feel how much love I hold and have held for her.

I hope that the things I’ve had to endure one day teach her to be brave and strong and resilient - even though nobody should have to be this god damn resilient. And I hope more than anything that if she ever ends up standing on this line that I’ve been clutching onto with my both my hands and my feet, that she’ll know she can come to me with the whole truth, and that we will figure it out together. I hope she knows she’ll never be alone - in hope, heart or spirit, and that no matter where I am, I’ll always be with her.

And because this question asked what I hope will eventually happen, I’m realizing that all of my hopes are about and for my sweet girl, not for me.

Thats how my brain works. Others > Myself.

I guess that I hope I find the courage to stay.

I hope I find the strength I need to stay.

I hope it doesn’t get any harder than this, because i’m not sure I’ll be able to survive if it does.

I hope that I’ll reach a day in the future where I look back at this season and think ‘wow, that was horrendous. And I did it. I didn’t let it take me. I fought back. I waited, and I found my footing again.”

Who knows what the future will bring. Whether it’s tomorrow, or next week, a month from now or sometime next year - I just hope we’re all still surviving. In many regards that doesn’t feel like a big ask, or a big hope, but right now, it fees too big, too hard, too scary - because I don’t know if it can be real. I don’t know if it’s feasible to happen.