This morning I woke up crying.
It was literal lamenting. It wasn’t the quiet kind of tears that disappear as quickly as they arrive. These were heavy tears, the kind that come from somewhere deep inside. I cried for ten minutes before I could pull myself together for work.
The grief felt unbearable.
Part of it is knowing that I am walking away from my entire family. Not just one person. Not one relationship. All of it.
Part of it is wondering what comes after.
People often talk about building a new family, finding your tribe, creating a community. Maybe that happens for some people. I honestly don’t know.
I’ve had a rough go of friendships throughout my life. The first relationships to fall away during my no-contact journey were the unhealthy ones … the performative friendships, the one-sided friendships, the relationships that looked supportive on the surface but underneath carried resentment, envy, or contempt.
What remains is small.
So small that, if I’m honest, it barely exists in my everyday life.
Most days, I go it alone.
The strange thing is that being alone has never frightened me. I’ve spent most of my life on the edges of things. Watching. Observing. Moving quietly through the world. I’ve never been the person surrounded by a crowd of friends. I’ve never been the person who seemed to have a place waiting for them wherever they went.
In many ways, I was born a wanderer.
Not because I didn’t love people.
Not because people didn’t matter to me.
But because there has always been a part of me that stood slightly apart, looking in from the outside.
Maybe that’s why this hurts so much.
Not because I suddenly find myself alone.
But because I am being forced to acknowledge how alone I have often been.
That doesn’t mean I never loved my family.
I did.
I do.
The tragedy is that loving people and belonging with them are not always the same thing.
My Voice Unchained 