You will be okay 🫶🏻

one breath, then the next

Feb 24, 2025

Little note from the author: I am posting this a day after writing, which feels slightly less vulnerable, but probably only because I haven’t re-read it today. But people say you should write about the things you wish you didn’t know, the feelings you wish you didn’t have, and I did that, so yay me!

Today feels less sad. I bought a baby present for a friend, took myself to a movie, and bought Mod Podge for the first time in ages because I love it. Seriously, why haven’t I Mod-Podged anything in over a decade? The sun is shining, and I know things will be okay, even though it doesn’t always feel like it.

Happy(?) Sunday. I literally don’t know what I want to say, but I want to write, so I’m just going to start here.

Earlier this week, I changed the name of this newsletter to “i’m so glad to be here” instead of “I’m so glad you’re here” because I find that I have less to say when I am writing to other people than when I am just writing for myself — at least, I think. I mean, here I am, not even knowing what to say. And I am still glad you’re here, of course, but I’m trying to remind myself right now that showing up for me and giving myself the gift of writing words that I want to write is enough. And reminding myself also that I’m glad to be here, to be able even to try to write words.

Anyway, writing usually works like that. Once you start, the words find you. You don’t really have to find them. They’re just kind of already waiting to tell you the thing.

text on white background — Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash

Ironically, the days surrounding this newsletter change have been filled with questions about why I’m here and a lot of wishing that it were easier for me to just be. Lots of tears. It could be anxiety, depression, PMDD, the moon, the stress swirling around the U.S. right now that you can’t avoid even if you try to, being stuck in the house for a week because of the weather, having a 3,000-word paper due for school this week, or just my continued emotional struggles with trauma. I’m sure it’s a combination, but sometimes, all you can tell is that it feels like you’re floating.

I don’t feel this way all the time, but I have felt an overwhelming sense of sadness lately. I guess trauma has a way of keeping you stuck in the past—in many ways. Emotionally and in your memories. You miss the good times and still feel emotionally distraught over the difficult times. Then, it calms down for a while but comes back stronger than ever, leaving you to pick up the pieces again.

There are moments when it feels exhausting to keep picking them up repeatedly. Sadness feels like it touches every other memory, every idea, every dream for the future. I have found that everything wants to be filtered through the worst things that have happened, leading me to believe that I can only move forward if whatever I do is entangled with what happened. But that’s not true.

I move forward, still a bit tangled up sometimes with awful memories, fears, and heartbreak. I acknowledge that we all navigate life that way, but after experiencing childhood trauma and trauma as an adult, I do feel a bit more tangled up than other people sometimes.

It makes me feel different. Around other people, my thoughts can take an automatic turn, and it’s an onslaught: you aren’t like them; they are here because they feel bad for you, and they see you as different; why aren’t you normal? WHY CAN’T YOU JUST BE NORMAL?

(Does anyone else feel this way? Because it’s the worst.)

I know the trauma wants to be seen. The pain wants its place to speak. I think feeling unseen and unknown can take a toll. In their most fearful and distressing moments, a younger version of yourself is just screaming to be seen, known, and held. On the one hand, who gave her my number? On the other hand, it is an honor that she keeps reaching out, asking for my help to make it feel better. On the third figurative hand (because I do not have three hands), I feel inadequate to help, but I want to do a better job for her.

Adult me finds this a little overwhelming because this is all happening right as I’m trying not to forget appointments, witness the world around me, and be present for the joys with my children. And my high sensitivity to, well, literally everything, makes each of these experiences a little more intense.

I have this one memory from early childhood, standing on the outside of a door that was shut and locked while I was screaming on the outside,

And I think that’s what my internal experience has felt like ever since.

There have been a few magical moments and people who have made me feel almost worthy of connection, love, and belonging, but it’s been a genuine struggle for me ever since. That’s a long time for such a painful, genuine struggle to last.

So, I was going to try to somehow redeem the depressing nature of this letter by also talking more about the normal things I’ve been up to this week too, like finishing Emily in Paris with Bella and feeding the birds in my yard during the ice/snowstorm and writing about furniture.

But maybe this week, if I wrote about those things, I would be writing that for you to make you think I’m okay instead of screaming inside, and that wouldn’t be true at this moment. (Nor is it evidently what led me here to write.) So, I’ll leave it at this:

To every version of me (or you) that feels endlessly stuck outside of love, belonging, acceptance, comfort, or peace, you will be okay. I don’t know how you won’t feel that way forever, but we’ll figure this out. Because staying stuck here isn’t going to work anymore, it hurts too much. So, let’s just be here together and keep breathing for now.

I’m so glad to be here, and I’m glad you are too. (To me, and to anyone else who has taken the time to read.)

Xo, Jen