emberrisen

Category: Healing + Becoming

  • When Healing Meets Possibility

    When Healing Meets Possibility

    I spent a long time believing I was perfectly content being alone. Maybe I even needed to believe that. After everything I’ve lived through, solitude felt like safety — a place where nothing could surprise me, hurt me, or pull me back into patterns I fought hard to escape.

    I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to date again. I wasn’t sure I’d ever trust myself to choose well again. I wasn’t sure I even could recognize what healthy love looks like, because I’ve never truly seen it modeled.

    And then I reconnected with someone from my past.

    Not in a “do I want a relationship with him?” way. Not in a “this is fate” way. Just… in a human way. In a way that reminded me what it feels like to be in the presence of someone who sees me, respects me, listens to me, and makes space for me to be exactly who I am.

    It wasn’t the romance that shook me — it was the ease.

    The safety.

    The softness.

    The absence of tension.

    The feeling of being cared for without having to earn it.

    Before that weekend, I genuinely thought I was done. I thought I had closed that door for good. But being in that space with him — a space that felt honest and gentle and uncomplicated — threw all of that into flux.

    It didn’t make me want him.

    It made me realize I might still want someone someday.

    It made me question whether my “I’m fine being alone forever” stance was healing… or just self‑protection dressed up as certainty.

    It made me wonder if part of healing is allowing yourself to want again — even if you don’t know what, or who, or when.

    I don’t have answers yet. I’m not rushing toward any. But I’m noticing the shift. I’m acknowledging it. And maybe that’s the first step in deciding what I really want now, not what I convinced myself I wanted when I was still hurting.

    Open Windows Lena Rowan Indie Folk, acoustic, intimate vocals
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    Listen on Suno Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Suno.

    This song was written for this moment — a quiet breath of possibility, shared from another thread of my voice.

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  • The More I’m Becoming

    The More I’m Becoming

    For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a mom. It wasn’t a passing wish or a soft hope — it was the one thing I knew to be true about myself. I spent years feeling like I had to justify that desire, explain it, defend it, prove it. Maybe a trained professional could trace that longing back to pieces of my childhood, but whatever its origin, it lived in me with certainty.

    And when I finally became a mom to my daughter, the gratitude was so immense it felt like it lived in my bones. Some days it still rises up so strongly it brings me to tears. Loving her is one of the clearest, fiercest things in my life.

    But lately, something quieter has been happening underneath that love — a realization I didn’t expect.

    In the years I spent fighting to become a mom, I fought so hard for that one identity that I lost sight of the others. I poured everything into proving I was meant for motherhood, and somewhere along the way, I stopped noticing the parts of myself that wanted more, too.

    Now those parts are resurfacing. Now I’m remembering dreams I set aside. Now I’m wanting things I didn’t give myself permission to want before.

    And with that wanting comes a complicated sadness. A fear that maybe it means I cherish being a mom less than I used to, or less than I thought I would, or less than I’m supposed to. A fear that acknowledging my longing for more somehow betrays my daughter.

    I never want her to think I wanted anything more than being her mom. I never want her to feel like she wasn’t enough. I never want her to carry the weight of my becoming.

    But I also know — even if I’m still learning to believe it — that motherhood was never meant to be the whole of me. It was meant to be one of the truest parts, not the only one.

    There has to be room for both. Room to love her with a heart that feels like it could burst. And room to grow into the woman I’m still becoming.

    I struggle with the gray of that. With the unknown. With the quiet moments when longing shows up and asks me to look at the life I didn’t choose. But I’m trying to trust that wanting more doesn’t mean I love her less. It means I’m human. It means I’m expanding. It means I’m learning to hold both devotion and desire in the same hands.

    Maybe one day I’ll figure out how all the pieces fit. Until then, I pray I can be the best mom I can be — not by shrinking myself, but by showing her what a whole, well‑rounded woman looks like. A woman who never makes herself less so someone else can feel whole.

    A woman who teaches her daughter, simply by living, that love doesn’t require disappearing.

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  • The Text That Sends Me Back in Time

    The Text That Sends Me Back in Time

    There are days when I genuinely feel like I’m healing. Days when I feel steady, grounded, even hopeful. And then a text from my ex comes in, and it’s like someone yanks a thread I didn’t realize was still connected. Everything tightens. Everything shifts. Everything comes back.

    People assume the texts are about our daughter, but they never are. Not once. Recently he’s texted me about a relative’s serious health issue, asked me to help him outline traumatic events from his past, and most recently, asked a question about a property we once owned together. I was busy and didn’t respond right away. His follow‑up was “Good talk,” and then, “What’s your deal?”

    It’s hard to explain what happens inside me when I see his name on my phone. My body reacts before I can think. My chest tightens. My stomach drops. My muscles brace. It’s the same physical response I had during the marriage — the same instinctive preparation for whatever was coming next. Even now, even after everything, my body still remembers.

    Most people would say, “Just don’t respond if it’s not about your daughter.” And I wish it were that simple. But the most recent texts are a perfect example of what happens when I don’t respond. He escalates. He gets irritated. He pushes. And because I know I’ll have to see him when my daughter visits, I feel trapped in this impossible balance — trying to protect my peace without triggering behavior that could affect her.

    Maybe one day I’ll see his name on my phone and feel nothing. Maybe one day I’ll be able to ignore anything that isn’t about our daughter without worrying about the fallout. Maybe one day my body won’t brace, won’t tighten, won’t pull me backward into memories I’ve worked so hard to climb out of.

    But today is not that day.

    And I think that’s what hurts the most — the way a single text can make me feel like all the healing I’ve done evaporates in an instant. Like I’m back at the beginning. Like nothing has changed.

    But the truth is, it has changed. I have changed. The reaction doesn’t erase the healing; it just reveals where the wounds still live. It shows me the places that need gentleness, patience, and time.

    I’m praying for the day when his texts don’t shake me. I’m praying for the day when my body no longer confuses the present with the past. I’m praying for the day when I can respond — or not respond — from a place of calm instead of fear.

    Until then, I’m naming what happens. I’m acknowledging the impact. I’m refusing to pretend it doesn’t affect me. Because healing isn’t about being untouched. It’s about being honest. And this is my truth: I’m still learning how to live in a world where his words reach me, but no longer define me.

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  • When Healing Feels Unsteady

    When Healing Feels Unsteady

    I’ve been feeling unsteady lately. Not unstable — just unsteady. My emotions have been sitting so close to the surface that a song, or someone else’s pain, or even a moment of quiet can make me cry without warning. There’s been a lot happening all at once, and I’ve felt overwhelmed in a way that’s hard to articulate. This is the part of the healing journey that still catches me off guard.

    It’s strange, trying to understand what “normal” emotions even are. Before medication, my body lived in a constant state of fight or flight. I was always bracing for something bad to happen — because it usually did, or at least I never knew when it would. That was my last version of “normal.” So now, when I feel that same tightening in my chest or that familiar sense of dread, even if the feeling is appropriate for the situation, something inside me panics. My body remembers the old danger before my mind can catch up. I get pulled back into that place without meaning to, and suddenly I’m worried I’m falling into the same hole again.

    I keep reminding myself that healing is not a straight line. I know there will be days like the ones I’ve been having — days where everything feels too loud, too heavy, too close. Days where my body reacts before I can reassure it. Days where I question whether I’m really moving forward at all.

    Knowing this doesn’t always make the hard days easier, but it helps a little. It gives me something to hold onto when the ground feels uneven. Healing isn’t about never feeling overwhelmed. It’s about learning to recognize the overwhelm for what it is — a moment, not a collapse. A wave, not a return to the past.

    I’m learning to trust myself again. To trust my emotions. To trust that unsteadiness doesn’t mean failure. It’s just part of the process. And naming it is part of the healing too.

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  • Reconnection and the Work Still Ahead

    Reconnection and the Work Still Ahead

    I recently reconnected with someone I knew thirty years ago, and it surprised me by revealing how much quiet healing I’ve done — and how much is still ahead.

    For the most part, we’ve picked up as if no time has passed. Our conversations flow easily, and I find myself feeling safe enough to share parts of me that have been hidden for far too long. That safety is new. It’s tender. It’s something I’m still learning how to trust.

    Being open again is wonderful, but it’s also revealing. It’s showing me how much healing I still have left to do. I notice how hard it is to trust what’s being said — and even harder to trust my own feelings. For so many years, I doubted everything. I was taught not to believe my own reality. Now, even in moments of kindness and care, fear rises up like muscle memory.

    I’m trying to stay present, to let things unfold without rushing to protect myself. Vulnerability feels like standing in sunlight after years in shadow — warm, but blinding. I keep asking myself: When will I trust myself again? When will I trust others again? And maybe the answer isn’t about choosing between trusting myself or trusting others. Maybe it’s both. Maybe they grow together.

    This reconnection is teaching me that the work is never done. Each new experience reveals another layer of what I lost and what I’m fighting to reclaim. It’s hard. It’s scary. And it’s beautiful.

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  • The Quiet Return of Myself

    The Quiet Return of Myself

    There are little moments that hit me harder than I expect. Not dramatic ones — not the big life changes or the milestones — but the tiny, ordinary flashes that make me realize just how much of myself I had lost.

    Singing at full volume in the car. Dancing around the kitchen while I make dinner. Picking up my guitar again, even though I still barely know how to play it.

    These small things used to be effortless parts of who I was. Joyful, instinctive, unselfconscious. And somewhere along the way, I stopped doing them. Not all at once, not in a way I noticed. They just slipped quietly out of my life, one by one, until the silence felt normal.

    I didn’t realize how long they’d been gone until recently, when they started coming back.

    It wasn’t intentional. One day I just started singing out loud, and halfway through the second or third song, it hit me: I haven’t done this in years. The realization landed with a mix of sadness and relief — sadness for how long I’d been holding myself small, and relief that something inside me was finally loosening.

    As these pieces return, they bring waves of emotion with them. Sometimes it’s overwhelming. Sometimes it’s tender. Sometimes it’s a grief I didn’t know I was carrying. I’m sad that I let these parts of me disappear for so long. I’m sad that I learned to quiet myself to fit into a life that didn’t make space for me.

    But I’m also deeply, fiercely grateful.

    Grateful that I’m reconnecting with the things that make me feel alive. Grateful that I’m remembering who I am when I’m not shrinking. Grateful that I am, slowly and steadily, coming back to myself.

    This return isn’t loud or dramatic. It’s happening in the kitchen, in the car, in the soft corners of my everyday life. And maybe that’s the most beautiful part — that I’m finding myself again in the places I didn’t realize I’d abandoned.

    I’m learning to take up space again. I’m learning to feel joy without apologizing for it. I’m learning to be myself, fully, without hesitation.

    And I’m not losing her again.

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  • When Old Wounds Echo Through New Moments

    When Old Wounds Echo Through New Moments

    This week, something small and seemingly unrelated cracked open a place in me I didn’t expect. It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t even about me. But it stirred up emotions I’ve carried for a long time — the kind that sit quietly until life brushes against them just right.

    My mom is preparing to move to a new state, and her new HOA only allows one pet. She has three. Two of them are registered emotional support animals, which technically means she could make the case to keep all of them. I don’t know what thoughts she wrestled with or how heavy the decision felt for her. All I saw was the simple, swift act of rehoming two animals she has loved for years — one for almost a decade.

    And it stopped me in my tracks.

    My heart didn’t break for her, though I’m sure she had her own heartbreak to carry. My heart broke for the animals — for the sudden shift in their world, for the loss of the security they trusted, for the feeling of being left. They were being sent somewhere partially familiar, but not home. Not the place where they had been loved.

    The intensity of my reaction surprised me. It was deeper than empathy. It was personal.

    If I’m honest, it’s because I’ve felt that kind of abandonment before. More than once. During my parents’ divorce, when my mom seemed to choose a new man over me. And again at the end of my freshman year of high school, when she chose to move to Florida and I stayed behind. Those are stories with layers I’ll unpack in other posts, but the truth is simple: those moments shaped me.

    They made me someone who fights for the underdog. Someone who cannot bear the thought of anyone — person or animal — feeling unwanted, unseen, or unloved. Someone who steps in, even when it costs me.

    And that part of me, the part that aches at the idea of abandonment, is also the part that led me into an abusive marriage. I kept believing that if I could just love him enough, make him feel wanted enough, prove he wasn’t alone, everything would finally be okay. I didn’t realize I was reenacting an old wound — trying to save someone so I wouldn’t have to feel the pain of being left again.

    This week reminded me that the things we carry from childhood don’t disappear. They echo. They surface in unexpected places. They shape the way we love, the way we protect, the way we choose.

    And sometimes, they show us exactly where we still need healing.

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  • The Breaking Point – Part 2: The Decision

    The Breaking Point – Part 2: The Decision

    The moment everything changed didn’t look dramatic from the outside. We were at home with our daughter, who was almost two. He got angry again — the familiar tightening in his voice, the beginning of the escalation I knew too well.

    I asked him calmly to walk away and cool off so we wouldn’t have the argument in front of her.

    That simple boundary set him off.

    The yelling, the berating, the rage came rushing back, loud and sharp in the space where our daughter played.

    And something in me snapped into clarity.

    In that single moment, I knew I couldn’t let her grow up believing this was normal. I couldn’t let her think this was what love looked like. I couldn’t let her learn to brace herself the way I had learned to brace myself.

    So I told him we were done. I told him to move out.

    That certainly wasn’t the end of it. He refused to leave. He insisted my daughter and I should move out instead — despite the fact that I was the one paying the mortgage and had been supporting us alone for years.

    Even after his family convinced him to go, he didn’t really leave. He was back almost daily, lingering in the house under the guise of “maintenance” on the apartments we rented out.

    I agreed to continue counseling, still in the fog, still wondering if maybe I was overreacting.

    But the truth was already rooted. It had taken hold the moment I saw our daughter’s face while he raged. The moment my body stepped between her and the chaos. The moment I realized I could tolerate pain directed at me, but I could not — would not — let it touch her.

    I didn’t leave because I finally loved myself enough. I left because I loved her more than I feared the consequences.

    And learning how to extend that same fierce protection inward — learning how to choose myself with the same clarity — has been one of the deepest parts of my becoming. It’s not a part I’ve mastered. It’s not a part that comes easily. This is the work I’m still inside, the part I’m fighting for every single day. Some days I move toward it with confidence; other days I have to drag myself toward it inch by inch. But I’m learning. I’m trying. And that trying — that daily, deliberate choosing — is its own kind of becoming too. It’s the quiet work that began after the breaking, the work that carried me into the next chapter. Part III lives there — in the slow, steady practice of rebuilding a life I’m finally allowed to belong to.

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