As grief washed over me, it changed me. Each loss so intricate and unique. The house that built me burnt down. The walls that kept me safe yet wild and most importantly loved turned into dust as they burnt down around me. So I stand amongst the ashes with one question; how do I rebuild?

As each breath enters and leaves my body, my mind slowly spins deeper into the abyss. The air that fills my lungs doesn’t help me breathe. The thickness of the energy flowing through me feels stuck and stagnant. How do I rebuild the foundation that once held me? Who holds the answers I’ll never know, to the questions I’ll never forget?

After loss the world doesn’t stop turning and life continues on but things don’t remain the same. Change occurs in who we are, how we think and in how we see the world. The deep rooted discomfort of the unknown arises while you’re left to place one foot forward in front of the other. The type of discomfort that sinks into your soul. So you’re left searching for comfort. Comfort that can be found as you grasp at the fringe of familiarity in an attempt to feel normal.

While the change for me creates a separate cycle; the one where I grieve myself and who I was before I lost everyone counteracted with shame and gratitude for loving who I get to be today because of it all. I can help people now and I get to see life in a mystical foreign way to some.

I have grace for myself as I make mistakes while I learn. I have gratitude for the process and the ability to salvage amongst the storm. I have deep love for my own resilience but also for the people who choose patience and kindness as I weave and navigate in a somewhat chaotic nature at times. I have the power to rebuild. I have community. I have freedom. I have all the things the house that built me gave me, just not the people who built that house.

So thank you. To me. To the ones who surround me. For because of us, I can stand, amongst the ashes that built me, with the tools to rebuild my house.