This feels like me right now. 6 months after the dissolution of my first ever relationship, lasting 10 years. I have been running constantly, grasping and feeling like drowning at the immensity of the unfolding space ahead of me. What once was contained and structured, suddenly blown open in an excrutiating expanse. I am still running. I am still terrified beyond measure. But i'm also finding me again. I walked in the woods the other day and I felt myself within rising, coming up to meet me where I was. To tell me it's going to be okay. I cried with relief.
I still feel terrified. There is so much space, so many decisions that need to be made. Or maybe not. Maybe I can just be here a while and let myself catch up with myself. Because that doesn't feel so scary in this moment. To just rest. To let myself be me again. After not being me for so long. After being invisible. After shrinking.
Maybe it's possible to trust life. Maybe it's possible to believe that life is bringing me things beyond what I could ever imagine. Maybe I don't need to work so hard for this whole life thing. Maybe it's possible to not have to live life at a hundred miles an hour, trying to prove something, anything, to someone or something. Maybe it's possible to just be on this heatbeat. Maybe that's enough. Maybe.
Laura, this is such a beautiful and honest reflection. I can feel the ache and the relief in your words, that strange middle space where fear and freedom blur together.
That moment you described in the woods stopped me. Feeling yourself rise to meet you, what a profound homecoming. I’m curious what that felt like in your body. Was it recognition, or something entirely new?
The way you write about space, both the terror and the possibility of it, speaks to something I think many of us meet when life suddenly expands. The instinct is to fill it, to run. But I love that you’re learning to rest in it instead, to trust that catching up with yourself is enough for now. That feels like the beginning of something deeply alive.
Hey Alex, thank you for your message! For sure it felt like recognition, like she's always been there she's just been buried for a while, now she is shining more brightly and taking up more space in my system. Something i'm exploring with my therapist is about being in a space of confusion or not knowing, and how this feels unsafe. I feel I carry many external messages about what being in this space means about myself as a person. My worth is somehow up for question.
There's also anger and frustration from parts that feel they have done everything "right" and it's all fallen apart. Basically, the structure was built on sand but we didn't know that until Life happened. There's a huge recategorisation and reoganisation of some deeply held beliefs in my system right now so it all makes sense but at the same time it's fucking uncomfortable!!
I really appreciate how you’re naming both the recognition and the uncertainty together. It’s rare to see someone hold those two without rushing to fix either. There’s such integrity in staying with what’s true, even when it’s messy. 🩵
The magic in these posts (this one in particular) is the deep universality of the human condition expressed so vividly in an individual's experience. Pain is pain. We've all felt it. But to give it voice in such a thoughtful, visceral way, gives others (such as Laura; hi Laura) the possibility to make sense of their aloneness, while they too transmute it into aliveness. You are Kindness. Keep doing what you do. We are all the better for it.
This means a lot. I write hoping to touch something shared, but it’s rare to hear it reflected back with such clarity. That line you wrote, “Pain is pain,” feels like the truest sentence there is. Simple and bottomless at the same time. Thank you for meeting me in that space.
I've spent the last 20 min or so reading yourwhole post and each & every comment...with my heart brimming up fully and feeling awe at the sheer depth of human resilience and connection.
This. This is the point of human existence isn't it? Us flowing like rivers...and keep going on while showering unconditional love and grace on ourselves and the others along the way. Taking it one day one step at a time.
Robert frost's poem comes to mind (I've also tattooed it): But I have promises to keep and Miles to go before I sleep.
This touched me deeply. Thank you for reading with such openness. It’s rare to feel someone’s whole heart through a comment, but yours carried that. The image of “flowing like rivers” feels like truth to me too.
I can so relate to this. The time I was in crisis about a year ago, everything I did that felt good and healthy and grounding- yoga, hiking in the woods, going for walks with my dogs, just felt impossible. Until over time, sitting with my grief, at some point it became less impossible.
(And technically, I’m having coffee and on my phone right now, but when it’s to read things like this and be reminded I’m not alone in these experiences, it feels like it doesn’t count as “being on my phone”. )😊
I’m so grateful you shared this. It takes honesty to admit how the very things that once helped can feel out of reach when life tilts. There’s something sacred in letting the body and heart find their own timeline for coming back.
Also... Coffee and scrolling totally count if what you’re reading feeds your soul. I’ve convinced myself that’s in the same category as meditation. Caffeinated reflection, maybe. 🩵
This made me think of my own divorce, and a passage I wrote about Loneliness and Solitude as passengers in my car on a road trip. Loneliness sulked in the back seat, staring out the window looking at nothing. Solitude sat in the passenger seat, feet up in the dash, singing out loud out of key at full volume not caring what people thought.
I also thought of my friend whose husband died suddenly when’s he was 48. 25 years of togetherness and now suddenly she’s alone.
I also thought of my new friend, who is a one year widower, after 52 years of marriage, and how he is dancing with Loneliness.
I wonder how they relate to Loneliness and Solitude.
Funny, when I went through divorce, I got on my mat more. It was the only place I felt safe. I think it was a form of escape too.
Teri, this image of Loneliness sulking in the back seat and Solitude singing out of key made me smile. It’s such a tender way to show how both can exist at once, each teaching something different about being with ourselves. I love how you gave them personalities, how you let them share the same car. That’s what healing often feels like, isn’t it? Not one emotion replacing another, but learning to ride together a little more peacefully.
if I remember correctly, Solitude made it into my memoir, but Loneliness didn’t want to be included. I wish now that I had nudged her a bit more to let herself be seen because your assessment here is a more accurate depiction of what those long road trips were like for me…the both/and of grieving and sulking and the joys of doing things my own way without input from others.
Alex, I've been thinking about what you said recently about the alarm not knowing whether there is a real threat happening or whether it's just your body's response to everything. I've lived in a constant alarm state, I think, my entire life. It's my default to panic, to feel unsafe, to be afraid. I was also conditioned by a highly alarmed mother to look at the world through the lens of fear. So your words today in this essay reached that place within me that says it's okay to look around and look within and find your place of safety. But also solitude. The section "what it feels like to stay" reminded me of an attribute I believe is one of my best qualities, and it's this: faithfulness. I'm a very loyal friend and I persevere through hard things. I don't give up easily. I stick around. I work through problems. I stay with myself, too.
Jeannie, I love that you name faithfulness as one of your best qualities. That feels so right for you. There’s something deeply steady in that word, something that holds even when everything else shakes. The way you describe staying with yourself through fear and uncertainty — that’s a kind of devotion most people never learn. I can feel that faithfulness in your words. It’s beautiful.
Thanks for reflecting that back to me in such a special way, Alex. I do look to the trees a lot and feel a kinship with their steady rootedness. It's good to be a stable presence when so much feels chaotic and uncertain.
I just left my marriage and I feel free for the first time. My kids are off to college and I am alone for the first time in my life. I love my solitude. Sometimes it's lonely, but many times I love the peace. It was my choice to end the marriage, because I had no voice. I didn't really exist. It's a fine line between alone and lonely, like solitude vs loneliness. Right now I am so grateful to finally be by myself.
I’m really glad you shared this here. There’s so much truth in learning how to be with yourself after a lifetime of roles and noise. The peace you describe feels earned, even when it wobbles. Thank you for trusting this space with it.
“A world of difference.” Yes. It really is. It’s amazing how two states that look so similar from the outside can feel completely different once you’re inside them. Solitude has texture, breath, warmth. Loneliness feels flat. 🩵
Learning to eat meals alone was the hardest part for me.
It’s been ten years since my divorce. And as I zoom out and look again at my world, I no longer think critically about what I put myself thru back then. I see now the me who is expressing herself, not cowering beneath someone else’s angry words, nor trying to make myself small so as not to embarrass someone. I think I am more awake now than I’ve ever been.
I love the way you put this, especially that moment of “zooming out” and seeing yourself differently. It’s a kind of forgiveness that sneaks up slowly, isn’t it? I can feel the steadiness in your words now, the self that no longer flinches.
Yes, your words touched my heart. I could respond with different words describing a similar journey...but no, just one word you said will suffice. Performance. THAT'S the word that describes the life of someone who isn't who they are...yet. Thank you for sharing your journey.
I love how you said “someone who isn’t who they are...yet.” That “yet” carries so much hope. It reminds me that performance can sometimes be a bridge, a way of rehearsing who we might become until we’re ready to live it for real.
I remember living in San Francisco, surrounded by more people than I have ever been around in my life and feeling lonelier than I had ever felt. Then I moved back to my rural community in the hills where there was more isolation, but far less loneliness. This personal share of yours serves as a kind of holistic navigation manual for when the bottom drops out in life. A great read with my morning coffee. 🙏
I love how clearly you describe that shift. I’m curious what changed for you internally when you moved back to the hills. Was it the pace, the familiarity, or something harder to name?
Alex, what a journey! I so related to this: "A yoga therapist with a nervous system that couldn’t tell the difference between rain and catastrophe." My nervous system is like that, and I don't know if it will ever be fully healed. I love how you've built up your resilience, one small step at a time, day by day. Despite my nervous system, solitude practices deeply nourish me.
I hear you on wondering if it will ever be fully healed. I’ve started to think maybe “fully healed” isn’t the point. Maybe the work is just building enough capacity to live well inside the sensitivity.
I love how you remember and describe the exact moment and what you were doing when you felt that shift between loneliness and solitude.
All that practicing you did mattered. Sometimes just holding on, staying tethered as you put it, is all we can do in that moment. Maybe enjoying solitude, too, is a process, a learned skill (or relearned skill), that like all skills, requires patience and practice.
"Loneliness shrinks. Solitude opens." Oh, how I love the bare, simplicity of that truth.
I appreciate your gentle reminder at the end of your piece so much. "Not every day. Not perfectly. But enough." What a gift of kindness that is.
Thank you for sharing both your experience and wisdom.
Nancy, this means so much. I really appreciate how you described solitude as a learned or relearned skill. That feels true to me, too, something we inch our way back into after losing touch with it. I’ve found that even when I think I’ve “arrived,” life offers new layers of that learning.
What you said about tethering resonated deeply. There’s such quiet strength in simply staying. It’s rarely graceful, but it’s real! I think that’s where something shifts… when we stop trying to escape the ache and instead stay close enough to hear what it’s asking of us. Thank you, my friend, for your response and reflection. 🩵
What amazing writing, Alex! Love your honesty and insight. I was afraid to be alone after my husband died. But I kept teaching and yoga classes etc. it was the evenings and morning coffee where loneliness appeared. Twelve years now and I love my independence, aloneness. I’ve never thought of it as solitude, but being alone is not lonely. I’m a social being and commit to getting out and staying active, have a guy friend…volunteer and teach. The grief, sorrow, memories creep in , but I can sit with it, share it here on Substack and it helps get us through, right?
Thank you for articulating this journey from beginning to being enough, being okay… so very well! It touches me…a man’s perspective! Bravo, sweet man! A wonderful piece for anyone feeling lonesomeness. 🫶☺️
“I’ve never thought of it as solitude, but being alone is not lonely.” That’s such a powerful line, Joan. It captures something essential about healing… that being with ourselves can start to feel like companionship instead of absence. Thank you for sharing so vulnerably. I so appreciate you being here 🩵
Alex, I experienced so many emotions reading this piece. I literally felt an energetic connection- energy running through my body. Sympathetic grief? Empathy? Living those emotions, similar experiences? All of the above. The symbolism of the macrame plant hanger with the empty pot. Wow. It left me speechless.
And this: “Something that felt like my body had stopped treating existence as a threat.” I felt this one in my bones.
Thank you on so many levels for sharing so vulnerably, for showing us the many shades of aliveness, for transcending loneliness. For being. Sending love, light and appreciation, friend.
I love how you named “sympathetic grief.” It makes me think about how empathy sometimes dissolves the line between my story and someone else’s. Maybe what we call sympathy is really just the body remembering that connection runs both ways. Thank you for reading with such presence. I so appreciate you 🩵
Wow, Alex. I love this insightful essay, and I agree with your distinction between loneliness and solitude. When I first was divorced, all I felt was loneliness. Now that my life has been on track for awhile, I welcome my solitude.
I have enjoyed reading all of this, but these sentences really struck me. "They were practices of aliveness. Small, daily acts of showing up that kept me tethered to presence when everything in me wanted to disappear." I totally get this. It is so hard to begin life from scratch, when life as we knew it -- no matter how damaging -- is gone. The key, as you demonstrate, is to do it anyway!
You wrote, “The key, as you demonstrate, is to do it anyway.” That line made me smile. There’s something quietly heroic about that kind of persistence, especially when everything in us wants to hide. I think that’s where self-trust starts, in those small, unglamorous acts of showing up. 🩵
Dear Alex,
This feels like me right now. 6 months after the dissolution of my first ever relationship, lasting 10 years. I have been running constantly, grasping and feeling like drowning at the immensity of the unfolding space ahead of me. What once was contained and structured, suddenly blown open in an excrutiating expanse. I am still running. I am still terrified beyond measure. But i'm also finding me again. I walked in the woods the other day and I felt myself within rising, coming up to meet me where I was. To tell me it's going to be okay. I cried with relief.
I still feel terrified. There is so much space, so many decisions that need to be made. Or maybe not. Maybe I can just be here a while and let myself catch up with myself. Because that doesn't feel so scary in this moment. To just rest. To let myself be me again. After not being me for so long. After being invisible. After shrinking.
Maybe it's possible to trust life. Maybe it's possible to believe that life is bringing me things beyond what I could ever imagine. Maybe I don't need to work so hard for this whole life thing. Maybe it's possible to not have to live life at a hundred miles an hour, trying to prove something, anything, to someone or something. Maybe it's possible to just be on this heatbeat. Maybe that's enough. Maybe.
Laura, this is such a beautiful and honest reflection. I can feel the ache and the relief in your words, that strange middle space where fear and freedom blur together.
That moment you described in the woods stopped me. Feeling yourself rise to meet you, what a profound homecoming. I’m curious what that felt like in your body. Was it recognition, or something entirely new?
The way you write about space, both the terror and the possibility of it, speaks to something I think many of us meet when life suddenly expands. The instinct is to fill it, to run. But I love that you’re learning to rest in it instead, to trust that catching up with yourself is enough for now. That feels like the beginning of something deeply alive.
Hey Alex, thank you for your message! For sure it felt like recognition, like she's always been there she's just been buried for a while, now she is shining more brightly and taking up more space in my system. Something i'm exploring with my therapist is about being in a space of confusion or not knowing, and how this feels unsafe. I feel I carry many external messages about what being in this space means about myself as a person. My worth is somehow up for question.
There's also anger and frustration from parts that feel they have done everything "right" and it's all fallen apart. Basically, the structure was built on sand but we didn't know that until Life happened. There's a huge recategorisation and reoganisation of some deeply held beliefs in my system right now so it all makes sense but at the same time it's fucking uncomfortable!!
I really appreciate how you’re naming both the recognition and the uncertainty together. It’s rare to see someone hold those two without rushing to fix either. There’s such integrity in staying with what’s true, even when it’s messy. 🩵
The magic in these posts (this one in particular) is the deep universality of the human condition expressed so vividly in an individual's experience. Pain is pain. We've all felt it. But to give it voice in such a thoughtful, visceral way, gives others (such as Laura; hi Laura) the possibility to make sense of their aloneness, while they too transmute it into aliveness. You are Kindness. Keep doing what you do. We are all the better for it.
This means a lot. I write hoping to touch something shared, but it’s rare to hear it reflected back with such clarity. That line you wrote, “Pain is pain,” feels like the truest sentence there is. Simple and bottomless at the same time. Thank you for meeting me in that space.
I am truly grateful for having met you at all. Thank you for doing what you do. It is truly appreciated. 🙏🏻
I've spent the last 20 min or so reading yourwhole post and each & every comment...with my heart brimming up fully and feeling awe at the sheer depth of human resilience and connection.
This. This is the point of human existence isn't it? Us flowing like rivers...and keep going on while showering unconditional love and grace on ourselves and the others along the way. Taking it one day one step at a time.
Robert frost's poem comes to mind (I've also tattooed it): But I have promises to keep and Miles to go before I sleep.
This touched me deeply. Thank you for reading with such openness. It’s rare to feel someone’s whole heart through a comment, but yours carried that. The image of “flowing like rivers” feels like truth to me too.
I can so relate to this. The time I was in crisis about a year ago, everything I did that felt good and healthy and grounding- yoga, hiking in the woods, going for walks with my dogs, just felt impossible. Until over time, sitting with my grief, at some point it became less impossible.
(And technically, I’m having coffee and on my phone right now, but when it’s to read things like this and be reminded I’m not alone in these experiences, it feels like it doesn’t count as “being on my phone”. )😊
I’m so grateful you shared this. It takes honesty to admit how the very things that once helped can feel out of reach when life tilts. There’s something sacred in letting the body and heart find their own timeline for coming back.
Also... Coffee and scrolling totally count if what you’re reading feeds your soul. I’ve convinced myself that’s in the same category as meditation. Caffeinated reflection, maybe. 🩵
Caffeinated Reflection! Yes. 😊 I’m all about caffeinated reflection.
This made me think of my own divorce, and a passage I wrote about Loneliness and Solitude as passengers in my car on a road trip. Loneliness sulked in the back seat, staring out the window looking at nothing. Solitude sat in the passenger seat, feet up in the dash, singing out loud out of key at full volume not caring what people thought.
I also thought of my friend whose husband died suddenly when’s he was 48. 25 years of togetherness and now suddenly she’s alone.
I also thought of my new friend, who is a one year widower, after 52 years of marriage, and how he is dancing with Loneliness.
I wonder how they relate to Loneliness and Solitude.
Funny, when I went through divorce, I got on my mat more. It was the only place I felt safe. I think it was a form of escape too.
Teri, this image of Loneliness sulking in the back seat and Solitude singing out of key made me smile. It’s such a tender way to show how both can exist at once, each teaching something different about being with ourselves. I love how you gave them personalities, how you let them share the same car. That’s what healing often feels like, isn’t it? Not one emotion replacing another, but learning to ride together a little more peacefully.
if I remember correctly, Solitude made it into my memoir, but Loneliness didn’t want to be included. I wish now that I had nudged her a bit more to let herself be seen because your assessment here is a more accurate depiction of what those long road trips were like for me…the both/and of grieving and sulking and the joys of doing things my own way without input from others.
I get it. Loneliness can be such a diva sometimes, refusing to come on stage until she’s rewritten the script. 😂
Alex, I've been thinking about what you said recently about the alarm not knowing whether there is a real threat happening or whether it's just your body's response to everything. I've lived in a constant alarm state, I think, my entire life. It's my default to panic, to feel unsafe, to be afraid. I was also conditioned by a highly alarmed mother to look at the world through the lens of fear. So your words today in this essay reached that place within me that says it's okay to look around and look within and find your place of safety. But also solitude. The section "what it feels like to stay" reminded me of an attribute I believe is one of my best qualities, and it's this: faithfulness. I'm a very loyal friend and I persevere through hard things. I don't give up easily. I stick around. I work through problems. I stay with myself, too.
Thank you for this gift, friend.
Jeannie, I love that you name faithfulness as one of your best qualities. That feels so right for you. There’s something deeply steady in that word, something that holds even when everything else shakes. The way you describe staying with yourself through fear and uncertainty — that’s a kind of devotion most people never learn. I can feel that faithfulness in your words. It’s beautiful.
Thanks for reflecting that back to me in such a special way, Alex. I do look to the trees a lot and feel a kinship with their steady rootedness. It's good to be a stable presence when so much feels chaotic and uncertain.
I just left my marriage and I feel free for the first time. My kids are off to college and I am alone for the first time in my life. I love my solitude. Sometimes it's lonely, but many times I love the peace. It was my choice to end the marriage, because I had no voice. I didn't really exist. It's a fine line between alone and lonely, like solitude vs loneliness. Right now I am so grateful to finally be by myself.
I’m really glad you shared this here. There’s so much truth in learning how to be with yourself after a lifetime of roles and noise. The peace you describe feels earned, even when it wobbles. Thank you for trusting this space with it.
To stay. With our-Selves.
Solitude, not loneliness.
A world of difference.
“A world of difference.” Yes. It really is. It’s amazing how two states that look so similar from the outside can feel completely different once you’re inside them. Solitude has texture, breath, warmth. Loneliness feels flat. 🩵
Learning to eat meals alone was the hardest part for me.
It’s been ten years since my divorce. And as I zoom out and look again at my world, I no longer think critically about what I put myself thru back then. I see now the me who is expressing herself, not cowering beneath someone else’s angry words, nor trying to make myself small so as not to embarrass someone. I think I am more awake now than I’ve ever been.
I love the way you put this, especially that moment of “zooming out” and seeing yourself differently. It’s a kind of forgiveness that sneaks up slowly, isn’t it? I can feel the steadiness in your words now, the self that no longer flinches.
Yes, your words touched my heart. I could respond with different words describing a similar journey...but no, just one word you said will suffice. Performance. THAT'S the word that describes the life of someone who isn't who they are...yet. Thank you for sharing your journey.
I love how you said “someone who isn’t who they are...yet.” That “yet” carries so much hope. It reminds me that performance can sometimes be a bridge, a way of rehearsing who we might become until we’re ready to live it for real.
I remember living in San Francisco, surrounded by more people than I have ever been around in my life and feeling lonelier than I had ever felt. Then I moved back to my rural community in the hills where there was more isolation, but far less loneliness. This personal share of yours serves as a kind of holistic navigation manual for when the bottom drops out in life. A great read with my morning coffee. 🙏
I love how clearly you describe that shift. I’m curious what changed for you internally when you moved back to the hills. Was it the pace, the familiarity, or something harder to name?
Alex, what a journey! I so related to this: "A yoga therapist with a nervous system that couldn’t tell the difference between rain and catastrophe." My nervous system is like that, and I don't know if it will ever be fully healed. I love how you've built up your resilience, one small step at a time, day by day. Despite my nervous system, solitude practices deeply nourish me.
I hear you on wondering if it will ever be fully healed. I’ve started to think maybe “fully healed” isn’t the point. Maybe the work is just building enough capacity to live well inside the sensitivity.
Yes! That would be nice!
Hi Alex,
I love how you remember and describe the exact moment and what you were doing when you felt that shift between loneliness and solitude.
All that practicing you did mattered. Sometimes just holding on, staying tethered as you put it, is all we can do in that moment. Maybe enjoying solitude, too, is a process, a learned skill (or relearned skill), that like all skills, requires patience and practice.
"Loneliness shrinks. Solitude opens." Oh, how I love the bare, simplicity of that truth.
I appreciate your gentle reminder at the end of your piece so much. "Not every day. Not perfectly. But enough." What a gift of kindness that is.
Thank you for sharing both your experience and wisdom.
Nancy, this means so much. I really appreciate how you described solitude as a learned or relearned skill. That feels true to me, too, something we inch our way back into after losing touch with it. I’ve found that even when I think I’ve “arrived,” life offers new layers of that learning.
What you said about tethering resonated deeply. There’s such quiet strength in simply staying. It’s rarely graceful, but it’s real! I think that’s where something shifts… when we stop trying to escape the ache and instead stay close enough to hear what it’s asking of us. Thank you, my friend, for your response and reflection. 🩵
What amazing writing, Alex! Love your honesty and insight. I was afraid to be alone after my husband died. But I kept teaching and yoga classes etc. it was the evenings and morning coffee where loneliness appeared. Twelve years now and I love my independence, aloneness. I’ve never thought of it as solitude, but being alone is not lonely. I’m a social being and commit to getting out and staying active, have a guy friend…volunteer and teach. The grief, sorrow, memories creep in , but I can sit with it, share it here on Substack and it helps get us through, right?
Thank you for articulating this journey from beginning to being enough, being okay… so very well! It touches me…a man’s perspective! Bravo, sweet man! A wonderful piece for anyone feeling lonesomeness. 🫶☺️
“I’ve never thought of it as solitude, but being alone is not lonely.” That’s such a powerful line, Joan. It captures something essential about healing… that being with ourselves can start to feel like companionship instead of absence. Thank you for sharing so vulnerably. I so appreciate you being here 🩵
Alex, I experienced so many emotions reading this piece. I literally felt an energetic connection- energy running through my body. Sympathetic grief? Empathy? Living those emotions, similar experiences? All of the above. The symbolism of the macrame plant hanger with the empty pot. Wow. It left me speechless.
And this: “Something that felt like my body had stopped treating existence as a threat.” I felt this one in my bones.
Thank you on so many levels for sharing so vulnerably, for showing us the many shades of aliveness, for transcending loneliness. For being. Sending love, light and appreciation, friend.
I love how you named “sympathetic grief.” It makes me think about how empathy sometimes dissolves the line between my story and someone else’s. Maybe what we call sympathy is really just the body remembering that connection runs both ways. Thank you for reading with such presence. I so appreciate you 🩵
Wow, Alex. I love this insightful essay, and I agree with your distinction between loneliness and solitude. When I first was divorced, all I felt was loneliness. Now that my life has been on track for awhile, I welcome my solitude.
I have enjoyed reading all of this, but these sentences really struck me. "They were practices of aliveness. Small, daily acts of showing up that kept me tethered to presence when everything in me wanted to disappear." I totally get this. It is so hard to begin life from scratch, when life as we knew it -- no matter how damaging -- is gone. The key, as you demonstrate, is to do it anyway!
You wrote, “The key, as you demonstrate, is to do it anyway.” That line made me smile. There’s something quietly heroic about that kind of persistence, especially when everything in us wants to hide. I think that’s where self-trust starts, in those small, unglamorous acts of showing up. 🩵