I take it out, set it on the counter. Cringe at the color of what oozes beneath the lid.

I should empty it. Wash it. Double wash it.

I could.

I'm capable.

Instead

I drop the whole thing unopened into the trash can and walk away, satisfied in $2.50 well spent.

Rest easy, two week old soup. We hardly knew ye.

In the void of what was and is no more

Not empty

Not pointless

Not impossible

Just…different

I stand at the glass edge of a new chapter

Alone

Knock

Listen for the voice to echo back to me

Not voice

Voices

Husband, father, mother, sisters, brothers

Not alone

But

In the void

Of what was and is no more

Writing is different now

Hoping

Loving

Resting

Rising

Trying

Please don’t give up

Writing

Creating

Sharing

Seeking

Please don’t give up

Family

Friends

Faith

Intellect

Yourself

Please don’t give up

Passions

Hobbies

Ideas

Dreams

Please don’t give up

Living

Rest for awhile, for a little or a long time. But know that it is just that…rest. It isn’t the end of an era. It wasn’t any of it wasted. Because there is plenty of life to be lived in the rest, in the pause, in the space between ideas, in the anticipation of discovering in others that which for a while lay dormant in the self.

This is life. It doesn’t come later. You didn’t miss your chance.

You’re doing it now.

Resting, living, loving, growing, learning, listening.

Just. Don’t. Give. Up.

Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder.

Hormones.

No tests. Just a chat in a brightly lit room with a sympathetic nurse and a kind, young doctor. She had a wizard frog pin on her lanyard. He had seasonal allergies.

Letters on a chart.

More letters for the alphabet soup of my brain.

But official ones this time! I’ve never had those before.

Letters to explain the creature that crawls into my skin for 10-12 days out of every 24.

That hijacks my reasoning, my logic, my care.

At the drop of a sigh, it sets fire to relationships of 15 years. Threatens to end eras, burn bridges, bury me and call it mercy.

It blows my mind wide open for assault by every sound, every light, every scent, every texture in a 4-mile radius.

It tells me I'd be better off elsewhere. And that everyone around me would be thankful.

It assures me that every slightly-off tone means they secretly hate me.

It tells me I can’t do this, can’t handle my life, my work, my family’s needs. Can’t even drive to the grocery store, put gas in my car, do laundry, return a text. What even is the point of fighting, knowing that it will end just to happen again? That a complete stranger will take up residence in my home, push me to the side like an untethered soul watching the world go by but unable to reach it.

Fatigue I fight from waking to sleep, dreams I can’t escape, loss of motor control and muscle strength. Joint pain, migraines, overheating.

And when it really gets going, those flares last long after the creature is gone. Leaving me with a body that has to be dragged out of bed, propelled towards the day, thrown from one task to another until I can finally collapse.

I dropped the keys because my hand just…stopped working.

I ran into the door because my vestibular system just…stopped working.

I cancelled plans, isolated, rage quit the Discord chat, ignored my creative pursuits, didn’t eat for 2 days because…well, you get it.

Back to me being moody…

They said maximum dose and try taking 4, go talk to a therapist, and eat more protein.

I nodded that I understood, and I do.

I said I was willing, and I am.

I made a plan, and I’ll follow through.

But thank God it wasn’t day 14.

I am no one’s mommy, mama, mom

But I am his sister, his caregiver, his Guardian Advocate

I am the one who taught him how to brush his teeth, how to say his ABCs, how to introduce himself

I rocked him to sleep, singing “Jesus Loves Me”

27 years later, he still sings it at bedtime

I am the reason he demands scrambled eggs every morning for breakfast, dips his french fries in barbeque sauce, loves the song “Get Out of Denver”

I am the one who taught him how to help with the dishes, bake cookies, paint with watercolors

I make financial plans for his future, assure my parents he will always have care, prioritize the child that I did not bear

I fight for his rights, ache over his loneliness, fear for his safety

I delight in his new words, dance when he dances, hope he has friends one day

And when he saw me on Sunday, he announced that I’m his and joyfully wished me “Happy Mother’s Day!”

Mother’s Day has come and gone

I am no one’s mommy, mama, mom

But I am a mother

A while after that, I learned that people offer to help, but aren’t serious about the follow through.

A very long time ago, I learned that people ask once or twice how that problem is progressing, but by the third ask, they’re expecting you to say things are better. So when it isn’t better, they start talking about mountaintops and valleys…to make themselves feel better. Not you. So I learned to say, “Not too bad, doing fine, hanging in there.”

Not that long ago, I learned that people proclaim that “we do life together,” then seem to forget you exist.

Recently, I learned that people don’t really trust each other with their burdens like they say they do. So when you open up, they close up.

And I know that others have their own things going on. They don’t owe me their time, their resources, their concern, or even their own burdens. And everyone can’t show up for everyone. That would exhaust everyone and then no one would feel supported. Same outcome.

But I have always had a desire to share and to genuinely connect with the people in my circles over the reality of life’s struggles. The valleys that you just can’t claw your way out of. The mountaintops you never seem to reach. To find comfort in shared experiences even when those experiences are different and painful and hard to navigate. Maybe it’s the “found family” trope. The “find your tribe.” The churchy “we do life together.” The missing big brother or sister figure.

Maybe people are afraid that if they’re honest with others, they’ll be seen as a burden.

As weak.

As lazy.

As undisciplined.

As difficult.

As unworthy.

As “too much.” Or “not enough.”

Maybe they’re afraid to really face themselves, so they don’t want to really see others either.

Maybe they don’t want to be reminded.

Maybe their ashamed, exhausted, angry.

Maybe they think they’ll be dismissed, talked over, told someone else has it worse, told to be tougher or less negative or to pray more.

Maybe they shut down because they don’t know how to respond, how to hold, how to slow down and just exist together.

Maybe we are all just lonely, burdened souls trapped in bodies screaming for connection, but molded by a broken world to believe that isolation is safer than community.

Today, I pushed past all of this learning, past the belief that honesty will make me a burden, past the internal monologue that others must be tired of me not being better by now.

I stared at the phone, put it down, picked it back up, found the name, shook my head, walked away, came back, pushed the racing heart aside, took a deep breath, and pressed Call.

And was met with, “I’m happy to hear from you.”

In the most genuine, non-performative, “I’m glad you’re reaching out to me to tell me how you’re doing whether it’s better or worse,” kind of way. In the “I took the long way so we could talk longer” way, not the “Well, gotta go, talk to you when you’re in a more positive mood” way.

It silenced, “You’re a burden.”

It eased, “You’re on your own.”

It quieted, “No one actually cares.”

And when I opened the door a little, so did they. When I admitted not having it together right now, so did they. When I said soon (but not yet) I really want to share more, so did they.

When I used humor to hide and try to “it’s not that bad” my way out of it, they understood and didn’t judge…but they also told me to call the therapist back.

If they were to stand up and tell a roomful of people, “Me and her, we do life together. We share burdens. We show up for each other,” I wouldn’t scoff or shake my head, I wouldn’t walk out rolling my eyes, I wouldn’t think “What a joke” or “Sure, maybe that’s for some people, but not for me.”

I would believe it. Because when we say: “I wish things were better for you,” we actually mean: “I wish things were better for you,” not just: “Please perform ‘better-ness’ so I can be more comfortable around you.”

This response to my not being okay (still) made me wonder.

It made me wonder how many times I’ve shrugged off a genuine bid for connection because I assumed the bidder didn’t actually want to know how things were going if they were going poorly.

How many times has my hiding myself caused others to think, “She won’t share the real her, so she probably doesn’t want to know the real me”?

How many times have I used humor to mask pain in a way that made someone feel their grief wouldn’t be safely held in my home?

We are not alone. We were just taught that we are. Our imperfections don’t have to be hidden. We were just taught that they do. We don’t have to perform with-it-ness to be found worthy of belonging. We were just taught to do so.

It’s time to connect. I want community. I don’t want to talk about being family while we all hold each other at arm’s length. I want to be the kind of family that isn’t afraid that sharing the real you will push others away because they’ve proven that they stay when you do.

I want to show up with honesty and imperfection and transparency. And I want to embrace my community while they show up the same way.

I want to hold and be held and to meet grief with grief and to celebrate hope and setbacks and to rest and heal together.

We’re still here. And that’s how we stay still here.

Please stay.

Please be held.

Please believe me when I say, “I love you.”

Sincerely,

Eloise

I’m tired of waiting and wanting and losing hope.

I’m tired of round-and-round trying and failing and giving up and starting again.

I’m tired of the rhetoric of “repressed anger” because the knowledge solves nothing. Soothes nothing. Heals nothing.

I’m tired of building routines that don’t stick, strategies that don’t optimize, routines that crumble with the full moon.

I’m tired of living in a brain that feels like a hostage negotiation more often than not while I wait for the chaos to finally, literally, bleed out of me.

I’m tired of monitoring and maintaining my life instead of living it.

I’m tired of spinning in circles trying to find someone to lean on for a moment. Just a moment. Someone who hasn’t already carried enough, seen enough, heard enough.

Enough.

Enough already.

How am I?

Fine. Just tired.

She answers.

I feel the energy shift.

Escalation. Stress. Fear.

I watch my brother for a reaction. Nothing yet.

She leaves the room with the phone. Still, I watch my brother.

She comes back, shakes her head, mutters something.

Twice I ask, “What happened?” before she answers.

For some, what she describes would be a nuisance. A frustration, but manageable.

For them, it’s a crisis.

I know that when he gets home, this will blow up.

Sharp, charged fear in bodies never meant to contain so much. Anger too big for the room. Trembling fists clenched at injustice heaped upon unfairness while tears gather and crack voices.

Simply two people desperate to catch a break.

Trying to continue doing what they’ve been doing all their lives.

Surviving.

I hear the sound of the garage door opening.

She goes outside.

I sing to my brother, play his favorite songs. Don’t listen at the door for volume and tone. Remember all the times before when I did. Wonder why I don’t feel the same dread now. The same stomach-twisting, chest-hollowing fear.

Control.

I have a little more of it these days.

I realize that I get to go home tonight.

But my brother doesn’t get to leave.

So whatever they bring back through that door, he has to absorb.

I decide that, if this goes how I expect, how it’s gone a million times before, I’m going to calmly pack his bags and take him home with me. His nervous system can’t handle this any better than mine ever did.

Because the stress is killing them. And I can’t watch it kill him, too.

So we dance. We sing. We wait.

The door opens.

I brace. Take a breath. Make up my mind.

Their move. My choice.

They walk into the kitchen.

Not storm in. Not stomp in. Not march in.

They just…shuffle inside.

They’re still talking about it.

Not loudly. Not grasping at straws. No frantic rushing of words.

They don’t go to their corners, they don’t isolate or shut down. They walk over side-by-side and sit down in the living room with us, quietly shaking their heads at yet another mess they didn’t make but are being forced to live in.

He plops down in a chair, shrugs his shoulders, even smiles in that weary way that reminds me of my grandfather. Their faces say they’re just so very, very tired. Their words say they’ll figure it out like they always do.

Later, we go outside and feed the rabbits. She thanks me for staying inside with my brother so that they could process this together in the garage without dumping that initial stress on him.

I don’t have the words to tell her that this evening did not end the way I expected.

That I’d been planning my escape route and my brother’s.

That I can see the work they’ve put in to change how they respond to crises for my brother’s sake, and tonight was the proof of that.

And as I stand there nodding, shrugging an “of course,” my mind drifts to my imaginary older sibling. The one I fantasized about as a child, who would talk to me about all the things that no one talked to me about, who would help me feel less alone in the role that I played so well while it crushed me from the inside out.

But he or she doesn’t exist. I’m just, have only ever been, talking to myself.

So, I take a breath and stand in the calm that shouldn’t exist in that moment, in that garage, while the four of us watch the rabbits eat.

People can change. And I’m thankful that they’re doing it for him.

And I realize as I write this, that they do it for me, too. We just don’t put it into those words so often because his needs are, have always been, easier to talk about.

But they know what this life has cost us, and they know that “us” includes me. So what’s done for him is done for me.

All this to say

People change.

And I’m thankful.

But actually, the life that we’re all living together now, feels very much like maturing, becoming, and learning together.

Plus doing it with adult money and not having to ask mom if we can go out to play.

I noticed recently that my relationships, and my feelings about those in my close social circles, are drastically different from just a few years ago.

It’s simpler.

It’s less emotional chaos.

It’s less weaponized pain.

It’s just…better.

Sometimes it’s just realizing, “I am who I am, and they are who they are. Neither of us has to change to suit the other person. We can just choose to exist around each other because we want to.” And letting that feel like peace instead of a panic attack (from a recovering Control Freak and People Pleaser, this is a huge step. Do NOT hold your applause).

I genuinely believe though that we, each of us in our own time, have learned a lot about ourselves over these past few years. And we’ve started setting boundaries and holding them. Then, those of us that wanted to stick it out tested those limits until we realized that the other person was serious.

Cue distance, obsession, reflection, hurt feelings.

And finally, the understanding that the purpose of the boundary was to maintain the relationship, not end it. Otherwise, why bother? Just end it. No need for all that work and awkwardness and confrontation.

We each found our way to boundaries.

The “I don’t like that.”

The “Can we do this differently from now on?”

The “I need to cut some things out of my schedule for my health.”

Even the unstated, “I love you, but I can’t let you hurt me anymore.”

All bids for connection that sounded like slamming doors.”

This usually resulted in…the break.

Some friendship breaks last a few days or weeks. Enough for everyone to cool down and decide that we’d rather have fun together most of the time than stay apart for all of time over one hard-held opinion about orcas (okay fine, it was about something far more personal than the ocean’s biggest bully).

Some breaks come and go, trial and error. We just wouldn’t make an effort to be around one another for awhile or to reach out, frankly, because it was exhausting. We were too much for one another, some too easily angered, others too willing to poke and prod until something exploded. These were the relationships we almost swore off of for life…multiple times. But then, eventually things just…fell into place. Like a brisk handshake that lingered until someone gentled, someone squeezed tentatively, and both realized that maybe our way of approaching the world had to bend a little if we wanted them in our lives. That doesn’t mean we give up who we are or change or hide ourselves. It means we care enough about the relationship to communicate, “I’m willing to soften something in me if you’re willing to treat me with the love that you claim to have for me.”

Now, some brotherhoods shatter in a moment. One too many last-straws. A year of silence. Then, just as suddenly, back in each other’s lives. Why? How? I don’t know. But I watched it happen. And they’re more stable than before. Stronger. With a realization that just because forgiveness is offered over and over, doesn’t mean it should have to be. And also, a resolution to hold something back this time, to protect trust by refusing to offer it fully. And that’s not unhealthy in an adult friendship. The clarity to choose which people to offer which parts of yourself is the result of learned wisdom as well as intuition. That’s healthy.

Because just as I am not perfect, neither is the other guy. So it’s okay to know myself well enough to know, hey that person won’t respond to XYZ the way I want them to because they are a person with their own personality and free will just like I am, so they aren’t endlessly predictable and don’t have to say what I want them to say.

They’re not a character in a book I’m writing.

But knowing that…maybe I’ll skip certain dialogue options. Maybe that’s how I maintain my boundary in that particular relationship.

You don’t have to give all of yourself to everyone, nor do you have to keep all the walls up all the time. It’s okay.

Meanwhile, some friendships just drive themselves over the edge of a cliff, leaving you wondering how you got there, where you went wrong, and didn’t you overthink enough imaginary scenarios to prevent this? But intensity was a match that burned down the foundation before it cemented. Unhealed wounds tore open under unintended interpretations. Some of those friendships ended. Done. Some of them circled the problem for a long, long time until somebody ripped off the band-aid and said what they were actually thinking. Which could end a lot of ways. Sometimes it ended with an, “I love you, but we don’t work.” And sometimes, it didn’t end. It just…became. Something new. Something with less uncertainty, less performance, more peace.

And you wonder if you’d been a different person, more like the person you are today, way back when…would it all have gone differently?

Maybe.

But maybe you still would have had to go through something.

Because that’s what life is.

That’s what all of this is.

Becoming.

I once lived by the belief that “People don’t change.”

But I think my opinions on that are starting to shift.

And I think that’s a good thing.

Maybe it’s not so much that we change as that we choose to keep maturing, keep learning, keep becoming long after the world tells us that childhood ends and that “we are who we are.”

Maybe it’s that we simply decide to stay. And upon realizing that staying may take some work, we make up our minds to put in the effort.

Because yeah…people change.

He has no voice, but he has words

Words flow through his fingertips onto the page

Words of silence, sorrow, loneliness

And a vision of Hope

He dances and smiles and walks and walks and walks

He says my sad songs are like an answer to his old life

Now there is Hope

I hope it grows and grows and grows

Yesterday, the body checked its watch and announced, “We've scheduled a crash for 7:23 p.m. Brace for impact.”

But instead of bracing, I tried to breathe, to recognize that this has all happened many times before. And to date, I've survived.

Patterns emerge.

Patterns of pain, but also patterns of how I coped, how I succeeded, how I failed, and how, sometimes, I just refused to lay down and die. How I crawled and stumbled and struggled to my feet until the sun felt like a friend again.

And yes, how I often thought I would just…cease.

But I didn't.

In the patterns, I'm noticing that I can now sometimes recover within hours instead of days (where once it was weeks…okay fine, months). And that's more than enough to feel relieved, hopeful, just a bit proud.

And I know it won't always be a fair fight. Sometimes, it will be weeks. Hopefully not months…but that's where systems come in. The things we fall back on. The safe foods, the safe people, the heart's desperate prayer stripped of performance, the scribbled notes in Sharpie on strips of paper pasted to the mirror, that song on repeat, that comfort show we watch to try to sleep.

We'll get there. We always have. One way or another, we will make it. We're making it now. I keep waiting for my life to begin, to arrive at some morning where I've “made it,” figured it out, rid myself of these things and found enlightenment.

But that isn't life. This is. The figuring it out, the working on it, the trying and mostly failing but sometimes succeeding.

You're doing it. You're doing life.

So today, while my mind tries to drag me off the cliff of “everything is too much all the time, what's the point, and if I can just make it to June…” I'm trying really hard to breathe, remember how I survived the last time, and see if I can hang on to the clarity I had less than 24 hours ago

just a little longer.

Because this, all of this, is the point.

I'm doing life.

I'm alive.

Many years later

Older now than you were then

The smell of grass, the heat and sweat on suntanned skin

My arms around trim shoulders

Your voice deep like I remember

I awoke to unfamiliar peace

Assured that you had visited to tell me that you'd made it safely to the other side

I dreamt of you

Jonathan

I try to untangle it, to make sense of the sequence of my life, past and future. Pick at the threads, try to force them into something comprehensible and linear, but the knots just tug tighter.

My brain is a cavern, every voice and demand and distraction echoing back, overlapping, growing louder.

I try to feed the input into my system of clarity, but the chaos shatters tolerance, and I lash out just to. Make. It. Stop.

My brain is a stranger, knee-deep in memories of other lives I must have lived. I look at the photos and see me. But she is just a child I once met. She isn’t me.

My brain is a threat. Leveraging shame and grief in some perverted pretense of safety. Louder than the love in the room. Holding me in place while the world hurtles toward me. Stealing sanity even in sleep.

Maybe I’m not okay.

I called a therapist today.

He lays into the room at full volume, instantly furious, already certain someone has wronged him. “This stinks! This is total BS!” Anger. Accusation. Full-body certainty that something has gone terribly wrong.

And then, just as quickly:

“Oh. There it is.”

I am Bulldog. And Bulldog is me.

But his response is played for laughs. No one seems to find it funny when it happens to me…

Instant acceleration. A nervous system wired for constant threat detection that jumps straight to red alert before assessing what’s REAL. Panic and rage that arrive as first responders, long before reason gets its shoes on.

Because when you grow up in an environment where crisis is often just around the corner, your nervous system only learns one way to respond to anything from “someone is literally dying” to “what an irritating, but mild, inconvenience.”

Panic.

We learn to fight before we learn to reason. We depend on caregivers to help us regulate and learn the difference between emergencies and problems that are navigable. But when those adults also never learned how to pause, breathe, and ask, “Is this actually the end of the world, or can I find my way through this slowly?” how can they teach it?

Breaking cycles and all that.

I didn’t breathe for 30 years.

No seriously.

My left lung collapsed in kindergarten. (The doctor said it was just anxiety. Oops!)

Three decades later, I stumbled across a video on Instagram that explained that when you feel air-starved, you can use the muscles in your belly to help take a deeper breath. Decades.

If you didn’t know this either, and you experience that sensation where you’re trying to take a deep breath but just…not getting enough air, look up diaphragmatic breathing or belly breathing.

By the way, the same doctor that said, “she’s just nervous,” also said that I shouldn’t be using my stomach muscles to breathe…so get a second opinion. I’m super thankful that my parents did.

It took me just as many years to learn that not every email is an emergency. Not every remark is a threat to your life. Not every conversation requires a multi-level defense strategy. Not every new development at work means the walls are on fire (no matter what Ashley from Operations says).

And not every conflict with your loved ones means it’s time to pack your bags.

But that’s what a nervous system trained for threat response does. It identifies threat and says, “Let’s go.” (which incidentally works for Fight or Flight)

And mine learned early that everything is an emergency.

Everything requires immediate response, flawless control, and competence to fix it, survive it, or hide from it until it passes (heads up: it rarely passes, you just eventually go numb).

That kind of wiring does not disappear just because you get the new job, meet the right person, make the big leap, or even commit to healthier mental and physical practices.

It only knows the script.

Fight.
Brace.
Escalate.
Identify who took your peace.
Loudly declare it all total BS.

Then maybe, eventually:

“Oh. There it is.”

I do not have a grand answer yet for how to untrain this once life-sustaining skill.

I only know that I am trying.

Because let’s be honest. This tool kept me here. This skill kept me moving forward. This lifestyle kept me productive. It even helped me care for my loved ones.

Until.

We talked about “until” last time. How that particular survival skill keeps you alive…until it kills you.

So now this tool no longer serves me. In fact, it sabotages my health, my peace, and my relationships. Daily.

It’s even made me do some really dangerous things. I think that was the wake-up call that something has to change. This isn’t just a bad habit. IT has become the threat.

So what do I do?

Well.

I learned about belly breathing.

I know that sounds small, but it doesn’t feel small to me.

And I learned to quietly say to myself, “Stop fighting,” when I feel that instant escalation that I know will just turn into a rage cycle that ends in destruction and shame and actual danger.

So I am trying now to picture the outcome of the moment…does it end the same whether I choose to flip tables or I choose to breathe and stay still? Yes? Then, I stay still. It saves so much energy (of course this requires a tremendous amount of presence and clarity, which I’ll admit I don’t always have. But when I do…it helps).

Here’s a safe example. Recently, standing in a store looking for a specific medication while my husband waited in the car, freshly post-surgery, I felt it.

That rush of blood through my ears.
That narrowing of the world into this moment, this problem, this emergency.
That shortening of breath.
That flash of temper.

How can they not have it?
How is this happening right now?
Why is everything ALWAYS DIFFICULT?

“This stinks! This is TOTAL BS!”

And then, somehow, over all of that noise, another voice.

My own:

“Take a breath, Chief.”

Breathe. Choose to identify this situation as solvable, not an emergency, no long-term impacts.

Slow. Down.

And then…

“Oh, there it is.”

So what’s the point?

Not that our problems are not real. Not that nothing is hard. Not that there are no true emergencies. Of course there are. Whatever feels like a problem to you IS a problem to you.

But I’m trying to learn that, most of my daily problems are not crises.

Most emails are just emails.
Most questions are just questions.
Most delays are just delays.
Most missing items are just in the wrong place.

As I said, I do not know yet how to help the threat response of my 7-year-old nervous system grow up to be healthy and strong.

The 7-year old nervous system that was pulled out of bed in the middle of the night and taken to a hotel. Then taken from that bed to one at my grandparents’ house.

And the world shifted.

The one that watched them pack the moving truck again, while cursing and shouting at the sky.

And the world slipped sideways.

The one that held them when they fell to their knees and grieved a life that would never be.

And the world shattered.

The one that watched through a cracked bedroom door when the EMTs arrived.

The one that sat across the table from the neurologist and watched their hearts get stomped on. Again.

The one that…

Take a breath, Chief.

Sincerely, Eloise “Bulldog” G. Wes

Not because we chose to. Not because we idealized it…well, not at first. We grew up tough because we had to. People needed us. Things needed doing. And the wheel kept turning whether we stayed on it or not. There was no time for collapse, no permission for softness, no one to teach us any other way of being.

So we became tough. Capable. Independent. Strong.

And we were praised for it. We were taught that, yes, this is how to be. Because the ones that came before us also had to be tough. They knew no other way.

We handled life. we kept moving. We carried too much and said, “fine,” when asked. We were strong, striving, and dying. But we were tough.

For a long time, that identity was survival. Tough was the tool that kept us alive. Kept others alive, too. We saw it. We saw the cracks in our adults, our superheroes. They were not invulnerable, so we had to be.

I did not become. I did not grow into a sense of self. I did not test and shape and try on identities. I did not select tough. It was communicated to me in one reality-shattering moment that the only way to survive, and to force my crumbling world back into order, was to BE. To be strong. To be faultless. To be without need. To be immovable. The rock against which their grief and shame and loss and desperation broke.

I was twelve years old.

There was no time to become, to grow, to move from childhood to adolescence to adult while learning how to be whole. There was a child. Then there was a tough, brittle small person trying to be everyone’s caretaker.

And when children learn how to deny their own needs before they learn how to recognize that they even have needs and name them and ASK FOR HELP…that’s a recipe for an adult who only knows how to ghost through life on autopilot.

Forward.

And force.

Force your way through grief…and some of it is not even yours.
Force your sadness into fuel…into anger that keeps you on your feet.
Force your body to keep up…by ignoring it. (That will come back to haunt you later)
Force your mind to adapt…by overwhelming it with input. (Surprise! That will also be a HUGE problem later)
Force yourself not to need too much…their needs are greater, surely (remember, you aren’t really a whole person, so how much could you really need?)

Forward.

Always forward.

But there is a cost. Of identity. Of wholeness. Of health.

The collision did not happen all at once. It was not one dramatic crash. It was many little knicks and scratches. Hairline fractures. The long, slow tearing apart of the identity I had built around being strong. Competent. The one who could take the hit and stand up, spit out teeth, and say “Again.”

Until eventually, after years of the body screaming, “Danger, danger!” and the mind dropping hints like, “Hey, I can’t do this much longer,” everything just…collapses.

Including identity.

So now I stand on the other side of tough and wonder: Who are you when the identity that saved you starts tearing your body and mind apart?

You strip off the mask and find absolutely nothing underneath. No personality, no sense of self that isn’t entangled with the needs of others, no coping skills for living inside a mind that has betrayed you.

Because if we are not “tough” then what are we? If we cannot barrel through life like a one-way train anymore, what is left when we are forced to stop just as suddenly as we were once forced into motion?

When survival skills we depended on for most of our lives start to look suspiciously like self-destruction?

I don’t have an answer yet.

But I’m looking. I thanked the mask, thanked the angry girl who is still ready to square up to save me and mine at a moment’s notice, thanked the survival skill of tough.

But when I tell them it’s time to rest…they don’t know how. They warn me that without them, I’ll be nothing, no one, and useless. Selfish.

So I am trying. To hold the child in me who skipped whole stages of becoming because there simply wasn’t time. Choosing to tell her that choice is not selfish. It is part of the healing. Because this body and mind demand healing. They demand it every moment of every day. They remind me, with pain, of their ultimatum: that there will either be healing…or there will be nothing left of me but ash.

So I am learning…

That a life that prioritizes peace is not less or apathetic or weak just because it does not resemble the battlefield that formed you.

I used to think softness was a luxury afforded to other people. People who had been protected enough to expect tenderness. But what if softness is not something you are handed? What if it is something you fight for?

What if gentleness is hard won?
What if peace costs something?
What if learning not to raise your fists at your own life is its own kind of courage?

What if the fight is turned inward, and the strong adult version of you who has learned all that you have learned, survived all that you have survived, grown fast and sharp…steps between the tough child and the fractured parts of their own identity?

If you open your hands to the shame and the grief and the fear and say, “We can all exist here, but we will do it in peace, not in pieces.”

Maybe the fight to survive was never supposed to end at staying alive.

Maybe the fight now…is to live. Truly live.

A life where “take a breath” comes before “brace for impact.”
Where care is not something we must ration out to ourselves only after everyone else’s needs are met.
Where we are allowed to exist inside our own life, not just manage fallout and stay ahead of disaster.

I do not think I am becoming less. I think I am becoming someone the old version of me would not have understood. She looks up at me with confusion and…anger. But I will hold her while she rages at the loss.

And I will live in the peace that I fought for.

Fought for in moments of clarity with shaking hands that scribbled out reminders of truth and pasted them to the bathroom mirror because I knew that the clarity was fleeting.

It still is.

So no, I don’t throw away the tools of tough, of fight, of survive.

I am still here because of them. So I thank them. I lay them down, knowing I can choose to pick them back up if needed.

But I can choose. I get to choose.

And that’s when we finally exhale. In choice. In the moment when life finally isn’t just something that happens to us. It’s something we get to live in, to make choices in, to choose forward instead of being shoved into it.

So I will continue to fight.

For strength and peace. The pillars of the identity that I am building now.

Sincerely, Eloise

A good one. Cozy playlist. Hot tea. Snacks. Research. A few precious hours after work set aside for writing, and only writing.

I was going to write about vulnerability in the collaborative creative process. About how sincerity must show up when you're reviewing, revising, and supporting another's creative work in order to do them and their art justice.

I had also planned to revise a chapter of a memoir for an author that is working with our team.

I had even planned to delve a little further into the new novel I started writing recently. Had been looking forward to enjoying the work again. It's been awhile.

Instead, I spent the last five hours laying down, trying not to move.

And sinking.

The pain started this morning and built until, by late afternoon, it ruined everything. Not just the plan. Me.

I pushed all day through work. Did all the things. Helped all the people. Ate the meals. Drank the hydrating liquids. Stayed positive.

Then came home and crashed.

So now I’m writing about not getting to write.

Because tonight, vulnerability was not artistic. It was not bravely sharing a draft or letting people see behind the curtain.

It was admitting to myself that my day was over.

It was giving up on the plan. Again.

It was calling my mom on the edge of a panic attack because I knew I had seconds to figure out how to stay present before things got worse.

Way worse.

So here's vulnerable: I'm just so tired of this.

So sick of a body that will not play ball.

Of a brain that attacks itself even when given all the right tools to be “better.”

Of symptoms that are manageable until they aren’t.

That's the wound that won't heal. The until.

I was fine until I wasn’t.

I was coping until I wasn’t.

I was functioning until I was on the bathroom floor bawling and didn't know why.

Until I felt my mind slipping sideways and was still conscious enough in my skin to know it was happening. To know I had already lost the game. To recognize that now it's about keeping the loss from tipping over into catastrophe.

That's the scary part. That's the “my anxiety has anxiety” part.

How quickly everything narrows, how small my world can get. How fast a sense of self can be swallowed up in pain, fear, memory. How nights like this pull me back to places I want to believe I survived, escaped.

Until they arrive and remind me why I can’t eat grapefruit.

I’m writing this now because the panic finally passed. Because the pain subsided enough. Because I needed somewhere to put myself while it did. I needed the words to keep me here. To keep me now. To keep me…me.

This is not the piece I planned to write tonight.

But it's the one my body left me with.

And hey…it's vulnerable.

“Nothing goes out without Mama Bear signing off,” he says.

My writing partner knows that his stories are safe with me. I never expected to become anyone’s editor or writing coach or business partner.

But somewhere between late-night revisions and endless text threads about plot holes and character choices and dialogue and “vibes,” I became what I always wanted to be: a safe place for stories to land and live and grow.

I encourage.

Not vaguely, but in a way that says, I see what you’re trying to do here, and it matters. Writing requires a certain level of vulnerability. Some drafts require more than others. The process asks you to put something real and unfinished into someone else’s hands and trust that they won’t break it. So I try to remind him often that what he’s building has value and potential.

I protect.

His manuscripts are alive and always becoming something more than they were the day before. I hold the heart of his stories carefully. I don’t tear them apart in an effort to look like I know what I’m doing. I don’t push for changes that would redirect his ideas from where he wants them to go. I protect the intent behind the work, even while helping shape the execution. I look for what’s real and true beneath the structure and try to carry that forward.

I celebrate.

As often and as specifically as I can. Because there are moments in a draft that deserve to be recognized. The line that lands just right, the character voice that suddenly clicks, the scene that carries more weight than he realized. Those moments matter. They build confidence and faith in the craft.

And I advise.

I look for the inconsistencies. The dropped threads. The moments where a character acts outside of who I know they really are. I ask questions about intentions, goals, and expectations for the overall feel of things. I’m honest when something isn’t working (and that requires some vulnerability too! More on that in my next post). I remind him of his own stated outline for the piece when the story starts to drift.

Not to control it.

But to help it better lean into what it already is.

In my former life, I taught writing and public speaking to elementary students. And what I learned stayed with me. You don’t build confident writers and speakers with red ink and endless corrections in the margins. You build them up through gentle and enthusiastic encouragement given consistently over time. Through helping them see not just what needs to change, but what’s already working. What they’re doing well. Where they shine.

Furthermore, you don’t just build isolated writers. You build a community.

A room full of authors who trust one another enough to share their words out loud. Who listen to each other. Who know that their role isn’t just to be heard, but to encourage, to support, and to help one another grow.

So now, I’m Mama Bear. Sounding board. Idea partner. Cheerleader. The person he sends half-formed thoughts to, knowing I’ll meet them with curiosity instead of critique.

Protective of the potential of stories and their authors. Fierce and compassionate about their growth.

If you’re writing something right now, something messy or undefined or not quite working yet, I hope you have someone to build you up and encourage you and your work.

And if you don’t, I hope to build that kind of community here. So please stick around and lean into this space where stories, and the hearts of their authors, can rest, become, and flourish.

Here’s to you, Chief. Keep writing.

Sincerely,
Eloise