The return to self

Have grace with yourself. You are not lost—you’re being re-routed.

I cried in the bathroom today—not from grief, but from something more unexpected: joy. 

It caught me off guard. A moment so small, so sacred, I almost didn’t recognize it. 

"She’s dead!"

I screamed those words as I hurled my old massage table across the trash room in my building. 

That moment? It was rage and release all at once.

It was June 2022, and I was moving—alone, exhausted, working full time, mothering two children—my youngest wasn’t even one yet. His father broke up with me six times before my 90-day probation period was over. This time, our "stay-at-home dad" changed his mind about moving in together. I had already given notice at my apartment complex. There was no going back.

So I threw it.

The table.

The weight of that old dream.

The version of me who believed she needed to heal the world to matter.

I had spent years sacrificing, studying, working towards a master's degree and building my career. I thought I was creating a life of purpose—maybe I was. 

But what I didn't realize until that moment today, was that it was preparing me for something greater, it was preparing me for this—the life I was meant to lead.

Because yes, the knowledge and skills come in handy. 

But none of this was planned.

There was no tidy five-year plan or vision board.

It came together piece by piece—through pain, surrender, survival, and grace.

And now? I have the opportunity to return—not to who I was, but to who I was always becoming. To learn again. To teach again. To embody the things, I thought I had to abandon.

Trauma didn’t erase my dreams.

It took a detour and rerouted them.

It made them bigger.

It gave them greater purpose.

This is the return to self.

Messy. Fierce. Whole.

It’s not a destination.

It’s a resurrection.

So if you’re somewhere in the middle— grieving, raging, shedding, rebuilding—

breathe and know this:

You are allowed to feel it all.

Just don’t stay there too long—

because you, too, are not lost,

you are being re-routed.

Give yourself grace.