Reclaim

A preference. An irritation. A flat, quiet no that arrives before you have had time to soften it.

It will feel dangerous. It is not.

The question that shows up here

Who am I, even, anymore. You have been in survival mode for so long, bracing and managing and shrinking and performing, that the woman who existed before all of it has gone faint, like a name you cannot quite call back.

Let me tell you who I was, just to show you the kind of thing you are looking for. Before him, I was active and spontaneous and fun loving. I took myself on day trips to the beach and the zoo, I went to concerts and parties, I said yes to things, I had friends and a life that moved.

That woman did not die. She got buried under years of survival, which is a very different thing, and buried things can be dug back up.

But this is not a return trip

The woman you were also carried her tender places, the wounds that were already there, and those are precisely where he learned to press. For me it was loneliness. I had spent years single and alone, a single mom who knew that ache intimately, and he found that button and used it without mercy.

And you have changed, and not all of the change is loss. I used to be searching, pushing, looking outside myself for love or for someone to come along and fix it all. I am not that woman anymore, and I am glad of it. That knowing is not damage, it is sovereignty.

This is not a return trip. It is an integration.

The gap nobody talks about

There are still days I can look completely fearless and confident on the outside while inside I feel small and unsure and full of a low hum of anxiety.

If you know that exact gap, the capable face and the shaky inside, then you already understand more about this work than most people ever will. That gap is not proof that you have failed to heal. It is proof that you are in the middle of integrating, and it narrows, slowly, every single time you choose yourself again.

What helps right now

Make the list. Sit down and make a list of what you loved before he came, the things that lit you up and made you lose track of the hours.

Then go do one of them this week. Just one. It can be tiny. It can be alone. Drive to the water, go to the show, say yes to the thing your old self would not have hesitated over.

You are not forcing the woman you were to come back on command. You are leaving the door open and letting her know it is finally safe to come out.

Hold one boundary so small it is almost funny. The size does not matter. The repetition does. And notice the urge to over explain or take it back afterward. That urge is loudest right after you have done something correctly.

What does not help

Starting with the hardest person. You are retraining a muscle that has not fired in years and you do not begin under maximum load.

Waiting until you feel entitled to it. The permission comes after, and only from you.

Where to go next

She will be everything she was before, plus everything you have learned about your own worth since. That is a woman whose buttons no one gets to press again.

Chapters 7 through 10 of It Was Never You are this movement. Your design, who you were, the root, and learning to love her again. Read the book.