Processing…

It’s been a couple of weeks since you left.
And the truth is — I’ve been lying to myself.

I cry quietly, while trying not to cry at all.
I long for you, yet whisper to myself,
“Let her go… Let her fly.”
It’s a contradiction I carry in my chest like a fragile flame — flickering between aching and acceptance.

This feeling… I can’t name it.
Neither my heart nor my body knows what to do with it.
How do you begin to move forward after losing your world?
How do you unlearn the comfort of your mother’s presence?
There’s no map for this place. No guidebook.
And no heartbreak before has ever come close to this kind of hollow.

So my body took over.
It spoke in the only language it knew: pain.
A terrible cold. A herniated disk. Inflammation blooming from the silence I’ve been trying to contain.
I’ve been poked and scanned, tested and told — “You need to calm down.”
As if grief ever listens to such simple instructions.

I try. God knows I try.
Some days I breathe deeply. Other days, I just try to survive.
I’ve started to ease off the medication —
not because I’m better, but because I want to believe I can be.

I’ve noticed that when I stop spiraling, when I let myself breathe,
when I allow the sun to touch my skin and the wind to brush through my hair —
things soften. Even just for a moment.

But when I take on too much —
grief, fear, guilt, memory —
my body cries for me.
And I begin to understand…
this isn’t just about staying strong.
It’s about choosing life, again and again, even when it hurts.

At night, the silence stretches.
I stay up late, whispering “I’m alright” into the dark,
even when I know I’m not.
You’re harder to see than most, Mom.
But I still search for your face in dreams that don’t always come.

And yet… you are still my most cherished memory.

I haven’t found the courage to listen to our songs.
They’re too full of you —
your laughter, your warmth, your light.
The melodies might shatter me.
So I keep them tucked away, like unopened letters I’m not ready to read.

And so, I begin again. Slowly.
One deep breath at a time.
A walk through the trees.
A moment of soft laughter — not quite real yet,
but close enough to remind me what life used to feel like.

I’m learning how to live without you.
I hate that sentence.
But I whisper it anyway, with trembling lips.

Still, the questions echo inside me:
How do I love again?
How do I trust again?

I don’t know the answers yet.
But I’m listening for them.
And maybe someday, they’ll come like you used to —
quietly, gently, without warning.

So if you’re watching me from wherever you are,
please know I’m not pushing you away.
I’m just… finding my way back.
Learning how to walk again with this invisible weight.
Learning how to carry you with me, not behind me.
I’m not lost, just… healing.

And I love you —
always.