Becoming, Lucy

Okay. I’m going to say it. The term grief is weird. An umbrella term to describe a complex mix of emotions that come with losing something or someone – because it’s not just sadness is it? It’s anger, laughter, emptiness, loneliness, happiness. And what’s even weirder? Grieving something you’ll never know could’ve been real. I’m grieving what was, what could have been, dreams, a life, a person.

Me.

It took me a while to see it but I have been living as a shadow of myself. I have been split into two for the longest time. My shadow has been leading my life – barely holding the weight of the responsibilities but doing it without complaint, doing it alone. She did it all. Without thanks. Without anything. To protect me.

I protected myself for the longest time, hidden behind the shadow and I find myself blaming myself for the grief I’m feeling. Why did I endure for so long? Why did it take me so long to see? I nearly lost myself completely. I abandoned myself somewhere along the way.

But I’m not to blame. It isn’t even about blame. It’s about acceptance for what it was. I stayed too long. I lost myself in the process. I let the relationship destroy me. And this new journey is about accepting that I did do all that – without the blame, without hating myself for it.

I have to learn to accept that the woman I am today would not be there without the hardships the woman before me went through… Because we are the same. She just carried everything for me for a long time, we were two separate people whilst she protected me and she protected me from losing myself completely.

But now I get to hug her, I get to thank her for being there for me, for holding the weight of the house and I will honour her. I will honour what she did for me. I will take her with me in every journey, through every chapter yet to be told of my life. Because she was silent for so long, she held the pain for so long but now she gets to shine – I see her. I see me. We are the same.

She lived internally. But she doesn’t have to anymore. My hand found her shoulder, comforting. I saw her. Her strength, it became my strength. We are one.