In the Middle of a Quiet Undoing

Six months. That feels like it should mean something more profound by now. Like there should be a clearer difference of the pain in the days immediately after we lost her and the pain now. Like I should be able to point to tangible markers of healing and say, see, this is where things are getting better. And in some ways, there are markers. Life has continued. There are rhythms again. I’m not angry at God anymore. But the pain? The pain of my little girl not being here with us, woven into the day to day, that pain is still very much present in every single moment.

But beneath all of that, something deeper has shifted — and not in the neat, inspiring way people sometimes talk about grief.

Before all of this, I was a people pleaser. I knew how to read a room, how to adjust, how to keep things smooth and comfortable. I could hold my tongue, soften my opinions, stretch myself to meet expectations that weren’t always fair but felt easier to carry than conflict. But what I don’t think I fully realized then was how exhausting that was…The constant quiet calculations. The internal conversations. The way I would rehearse what to say (or what not to say) just to keep things easy for everyone else.

It took so much energy to be that version of me. A steady, underlying kind of energy that I had learned to live with pretty early in life, so much so that I didn’t question it. And in some ways, I still am that person. But there’s something in me now that doesn’t work quite the same way anymore. It’s not a decision I consciously made. It’s not growth that came from trying harder or setting better boundaries. It feels more physical than that. Like something in my body broke open the day Haven died and never quite sealed back the way it was before. There are things I physically can’t do anymore. Things I can’t not say. Moments where silence used to come easily, and now it feels impossible…like my chest tightens and my throat burns if I try to swallow what’s true. Not because I’m trying to be bold or confrontational, but because grief has stripped away my ability to pretend certain things don’t matter.

I just don’t have the energy anymore. The energy I used to spend managing other people’s comfort, smoothing over tension, carrying things quietly; I can feel how much that used to cost me now. Because every ounce of energy I have is going somewhere else. It’s going toward not falling apart. Toward getting through the day. Toward showing up for what I still have — my son, my husband, the life that is still here and still asking something of me.

There isn’t extra capacity to hold everything the way I used to. There are relationships I can’t exist in like I did before. Not because I don’t care, but because the version of me that could carry certain dynamics, overlook certain things, or make myself smaller to keep the peace…she doesn’t fully exist anymore. Or maybe she’s just too tired. Too aware. Too changed.

Everything is filtered through a different lens now. Loss has a way of rearranging what feels important. The small talk, the unspoken expectations, the things that used to feel urgent or necessary, they don’t land the same. And at the same time, other things feel heavier or sharper, harder to ignore.

My opinions have shifted. My perspective has widened and narrowed all at once. There are things I hold more loosely now, and things I hold onto with a kind of quiet intensity I didn’t have before. And the strange part is…I didn’t set out to become this version of myself. This isn’t the kind of change I worked towards (though maybe I needed to). It’s the kind that happened to me because my child died, and a part of me along with her.

Six months later, I can function in ways I couldn’t at the beginning. I can show up. I can carry more than I could in those early days. But I am not the same. Not in the way I move through relationships. Not in the way I hold my thoughts. Not in the way I choose what matters. I don’t have the same capacity to be everything for everyone. And it’s not because I’ve mastered boundaries or figured it all out. It’s because grief has made certain things feel too heavy to carry alongside everything else.

Everything still traces back to her in some quiet, underlying way. The lens of loss that doesn’t turn off, even in ordinary moments. The awareness of what’s missing, even when life looks full from the outside. Six months feels like it should be far enough to see maybe a little bit more clearly. But some days, it isn’t. It’s just far enough to realize that some things are different now, and some things might never be.