Just a Pull
There’s no suitcase packed.
No house key waiting.
A house still unpacked.
Just me, my two dogs, and this feeling in my chest:
I have to move. Again.
I wish I could tell you I’m ready—but I’m not.
Only certain of the pull.
One week left.
No real plan.
I surrendered to the unknown—so I’ll be at my dad’s.
But not for long.
The dad who now lives in the fog of middle-stage dementia.
And let me tell you—this isn’t the homecoming I imagined at this age.
Not when I thought I’d be hosting holidays.
Traveling with my spouse.
Opening the door to my grown kids—my grandkids.
But that life?
It was ripped away last year.
Gone.
No home.
No clear direction.
Nothing.
And maybe nothing isn’t the absence of everything—
Maybe it’s just what remains when the script finally unravels.
You might know it too:
That script handed down, unspoken but enforced—
Be nice.
Don’t rock the boat.
Stay in line.
Swallow your fear.
Keep the peace.
Don’t ask for too much.
But what happens when you finally tear that script to shreds?
When the breaking isn’t loud,
but constant?
I’ve always been afraid of failure.
Not the dramatic kind.
The quieter one—the kind that happens in slow motion…
when the people who once believed in you… don’t.
It wasn’t betrayal.
Not exactly.
Just a series of moments that chipped away at me:
They encouraged me to leap,
then blamed me when I didn’t land perfectly.
Family said they supported me—until I struggled.
Then my struggle became proof I should’ve stayed small.
When I reached out for help,
I was told I didn’t know what I was doing.
That I’d always be struggling.
That I was chasing something too big
for someone like me.
They didn’t say they stopped believing in me—
they just stopped showing up like they did.
And the hardest part?
I believed them.
I had just spent a year watching my mom die of a rare cancer.
Months later, I was still deep in that grief when everything else began to fall apart.
What came next was losing everything we had built—our life, our stability, our sense of home.
And when I needed support the most…
not everyone disappeared—
but it came with a cost.
Some showed up—
but not without strings.
Not without tension.
Not without the quiet weight of shame and guilt
that somehow, I was still too much.
What came next was far too much for one person to carry—
but I still tried.
And for a while,
I thought their absence was my fault.
That I was too much.
Too messy.
Too lost.
That kind of failure doesn’t just sting.
It seeps in.
It makes you question your worth.
Until one day, something in me snapped.
Not in an explosion—
but in a slow, steady leak.
A thousand quiet moments of shoving down the truth
until it finally rose—
whether I was ready or not.
It cracked open in the silence.
Not during a crisis—
but in the ordinary moments
when I just needed to be seen.
To be heard.
And I wasn’t.
Each dismissal.
Every hang-up.
Every avoided message.
Every act of withholding.
It all whispered the same thing:
Is this love?
Is this what I’m supposed to survive for?
They didn’t break me all at once.
They broke me slowly.
Like a gut punch spread across a year.
When I Believed Them
You hear it enough, and it starts to stick:
“You can’t.”
“You’re not good enough.”
“You have no skills.”
“If you take that job, don’t expect help.”
And the worst part?
It wasn’t always said out loud.
Sometimes the silence was louder than any insult.
And I folded.
I shrank.
I told myself maybe they were right.
Until one day—I didn’t.
The Pull That Burned Quiet and Deep
That quiet desire didn’t vanish. It lingered—just under the surface.
It never left.
It lived inside me,
even when I felt empty.
The fire to do the thing they never expected.
To disappoint the people who were never really invested in my potential.
The ones who smiled to my face
but doubted me behind closed doors.
I didn’t roar.
I wrote.
At first, it didn’t make sense.
I didn’t know if anyone was listening.
But I kept going.
Kept showing up.
Kept putting truth on the page
even when it felt like I was shouting into the void.
And then—
someone stopped me and said,
“I love what you’re doing.”
A message came in:
“I need your help.”
And everything shifted.
Because suddenly,
I saw the truth:
Every word mattered.
Every post.
Every time I chose to show up
instead of shut down.
The Quiet Comeback
This isn’t a fairy tale.
I’m still at a crossroads.
Still scared.
I surrendered to what is—so I’ll be at my dad’s.
But not for long.
If I’m honest—I’m trying so hard to be strong.
But there are moments—like this one—when the tears come,
and I wonder how much more I can carry.
Still…
something in me keeps showing up.
Even when I’m tired.
Even when I’m questioning everything.
Even when it feels like no one sees the full weight of what I’m holding.
And maybe that’s what a real comeback looks like—
Not loud.
Not flashy.
But quiet.
Intentional.
Earned.
I’m not here to perform.
I’m here to connect.
To serve.
To love—
with a heart that’s still healing.
To hold softness and strength
in the same breath.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t ache.
It just means I’ve finally learned:
I can be tender and still powerful.
Scared and still moving forward.
What nearly consumed me
It didn’t end me.
It revealed me.
It refined me.
It gave me back parts of myself I hadn’t seen in years.
And maybe…
that’s the most beautiful kind of strength there is.
Love,
Regina