A letter for you

There are years that pass quietly.

They leave small marks, a memory here, a change there, and then they fold into the past without much resistance. And then there are years like you.

The strange thing is, when you started, there was no way to know.

The first few months looked ordinary.

The calendar moved the way it always does. There were plans.

Small ones, larger ones.

Things that felt normal.

But then.. A change

Then something shifted.

And then something else.

And by the time it became clear what kind of year you were going to be, it was already too late to prepare.

So much was lost inside you.

Not all at once.

That might have been easier.

It came in pieces, a loss here, a door closing there, a version of life that had been quietly assumed would continue, simply not continuing anymore.

There were things that were mourned openly.

And things that were mourned in private, in the middle of ordinary moments, while sitting alone, or lying awake, or hearing a song that used to mean something different.

Some of the losses didn’t even have names. They were just absences.

Spaces where something used to be.

A Letter for numbness..

What you took wasn’t only things.

You took a version of the world that felt safe.

A version of the future that had been trusted without thinking about it.

A version of self that existed before knowing what certain kinds of pain feel like.

That person, the one who lived before you, is still carried somewhere.

But that version won’t come back.

That’s one of the quieter griefs.

The kind that doesn’t announce itself.

It just settles.

Life goes on..

For a long time, being inside you felt like being underwater.

Moving, but slowly.

Breathing, but with effort.

Watching life continue around, through glass, wondering when the distance would close.

Some days it did.

Some days something broke through, a laugh, a moment of warmth, a small thing that still felt good, and for a little while, the weight lifted.

Then it came back.

The way grief does.

Not in a straight line.

In waves.

In ambushes.

In the middle of a the day with no warning.

I had to write this letter for you, to let you know

Another change

But here is what is true now, at some distance from you:Survival happened.

Not gracefully.

Not without damage.

Not in the way that looks clean and neat.

Just… getting through.

Day after day of getting through,

Even when getting through was all there was.

And something was built inside that year.

Not chosen, not welcomed.

But built.

A kind of knowing that didn’t exist before.

About what can be carried.

About what matters when everything else falls away.

About the strange endurance that lives in ordinary people when ordinary life stops being ordinary.

Different numbness

There is no gratitude for what you took.

Let that be said clearly, with a letter or without.

Some losses don’t become lessons.

Some things that were broken don’t need to be reframed.

They can simply be mourned, for as long as mourning is needed.

But there is something else.

Something more honest.

An acknowledgment.

A slap from reality.

That year happened.

It changed everything it touched.

And somehow, on the other side of it, there is still a life being lived.

Still mornings after mournings.

Still small things that matter.

Still something that reaches forward, slowly, toward whatever comes next.

Survival

That is not nothing.

In fact, on the days when the weight of that year still shows up (and it still does) ,

That is the thing worth returning to.

Not that it was okay.

Not that it happened for a reason.

Just that it was survived.

And that surviving it, is one of the most real things that has ever been done.

The year that broke everything did not break everything.

Some things bent.

Some things cracked beyond repair.

But something remained.

And that something is still here, still going, still finding its way.

-Lab Keeper 🌸

What was that year for you?