You Can Miss Who You Were...and still move forward

Grieving the old version of you while building the new one

I haven’t written here in a long time. Not because I ran out of words—because I was trying to survive my own.

Do you ever have times when the most detrimental words you hear are the ones that come from your internal monologue? Story of my life.

It positively confounded me that I hadn’t written in this space in three years.

Well, at first it did.

Then I recounted the last three years to myself, and suddenly it made perfect sense.

Following my brush with death, I began to rebuild. During that time, as is so often the case with me, a lot of life happened, including physical violence, the loss of a long-term situationship, becoming a true empty-nester, new businesses, and on and on.

Life be lifin as they say.

During that time, my internal muse fell silent.

That’s a lie—she wasn’t silent. She was a little girl in the fetal position in the corner of a dark room.

My voice was gone.

There were times I was screaming inside but could not find the appropriate words to express what the screams were about. I wanted my closest confidants to know exactly what was going through my mind, but I’d lost the ability to tell them.

And their psychic powers are woefully inadequate.

However, I am beyond happy to share that the tide has shifted.

My writing process, particularly my creative writing process, has long been more compulsion than choice. I’ll be minding my own business and suddenly words will begin to form in my mind.

I will inform said words in the sternest possible manner that I’m busy and don’t have time for them in that moment.

They laugh.

I then cannot actually focus on anything until I stop whatever unimportant task I’m engaged in – you know, cooking, cleaning, working – and write down the newly formed words.

It’s annoying, but that’s my process.

Yet it’s a process that left me quite silent for three years.

Never before has my muse fallen silent for so long.

But I realize now she couldn’t speak while she was screaming.

She couldn’t form words while I was bleeding.

She could not create while I was healing.

There is no timeline on healing. There is no instruction manual, no guide, no rule book, no easily defined beginning, middle, and end.

Yes, there is therapy. Yes, there are friends. Yes, there are tools you can use to get yourself through whatever crisis you have survived.

But the only universal constant is time.

With time, everything changes. Time provides clarity. Time provides development. Time provides the ability to let go of what you once were and step into something new.

Sometimes it sucks.

I think about who I used to be – how I used to be – and I miss her.

The me who never knew what it was to cry so deeply you felt it in every cell of your body.

The me who genuinely smiled every day on purpose.

The me who believed giving the world her all was her destiny.

But that me isn’t this me.

This me knows profound pain, confusing sadness, and unbridled chaos.

However, this me was built on a foundation of that me. I’ve learned I will never be her again, but there are parts of her that I can redevelop and incorporate into my new life.

It has been years of work, but in this time, I’ve begun to redefine who I am with an eye on being someone that I enjoy, am proud of, and am comfortable with.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I know I’m excited about it. I know that my muse awoke this past weekend for the first time in three years with a new poem. I know that I’m ready to reclaim the core of who I am. I know the next phase of my life is going to be grand.

Have you ever missed an old version of yourself? Have you ever had to start over before you were ready?

I return to this space determined to keep my voice.

This space will be honest. It will be messy sometimes. But it will be mine again.

Won’t you join me?