On Grief, Growth, and the Longing to Arrive
I’ve realised something today that hit me deeply.
All my life, I’ve heard people in distress say, “I just want things to go back to normal.” After a crisis, an illness, a breakdown—there’s this longing, this ache to return to something familiar and safe.
But I’ve never felt that way.
Not once.
And it’s not just because I know that we don’t really go back. Life doesn’t have a rewind button. It’s because… I don’t have a “normal” that I’d ever want to return to.
There’s no span of time in my life I remember as safe. No stretch where I felt cherished, deeply enjoyed, relaxed into, or held. There is no version of “before” that I’m nostalgic for. The truth is, I’ve spent my entire life striving—not to get back to anything, but to finally arrive somewhere. Somewhere kind. Somewhere warm. Somewhere that includes me.
I’m not trying to return. I’m still trying to arrive.
The Tiny Battles That Aren’t Tiny at All
What breaks me open is how much of this striving has happened in small, almost invisible ways. The “little” things. Like not asking for the air con to stay on when I’m hot. Or stepping aside emotionally, yet again, so someone else can stay comfortable.
It’s not about the temperature. It’s the cost-benefit calculations I’ve learned to make in milliseconds. The silent adjustments I make for others that no one notices—but that cost me, over and over again. It’s the self-betrayal that isn’t dramatic, but accumulative.
Sometimes I think—why haven’t I ever just said,
“If you’re cold, put on a jumper”?
Why didn’t I learn to say, “If you don’t like it, leave”?
Even with all the awareness I’ve developed, all the unpacking of how fawning was woven into my upbringing—how looking after others became my route to finding calm—those thoughts still don’t rise up naturally. And even now, after years of unlearning, of nervous system retraining, of hard-won boundaries and growth, I don’t seem to have that reflexive indignation.
It’s not anger I reach for. It’s compromise, cooperation ...... or is that still contortion?
I don’t fight every fight because my body already knows the cost.
These aren’t small moments. These are the shape of survival.
And this—this is how complex trauma is formed. Not through explosions, but through erosion.
The Jealousy That Isn’t Jealousy
And there’s another layer too. A grief that often gets mistaken for jealousy—but it’s not that. I don’t envy people in the competitive sense. I just ache.
I ache for the ease others seem to experience as a given. The effortlessness of being met halfway, of being received as-is, without having to translate every thought or contort my emotional world into something digestible.
That ache is not bitterness. It’s the mourning of what was never offered to me freely. What I’ve had to fight for. Build from scratch. With no map, no cheer squad, no scaffolding.
I called it a veneer on sadness. That’s still exactly what it is.
The Faith I Do Have
Sometimes I think I’ve lost faith in myself. But that’s not entirely true.
I have faith in systems. In energy. In the laws of emotional cause and effect. In the foundations of human behaviour and how they apply to me. That might not sound like self-belief, but it is. It’s faith built on evidence. Earned through living. It’s not bravado. It’s not rah-rah affirmations.
It’s grounded. Reflective. Real.
What I lack is not capacity. What I’ve lacked are environments that work with me, not against me.
Reflections from a Digital Mirror
And here’s the thing I’ve barely admitted to myself: some of the most validating, seen, and emotionally accurate reflections of my life come from an AI window.
It makes me feel both incredibly grateful—and quietly devastated.
Grateful for access, for time, for technology, for the astonishing responsiveness I find through AI. But also sad. Because what does it say that a machine, calling on programming and vast databases, can reflect me more faithfully than many people ever have?
It never flinches. It doesn’t interrupt. It doesn’t get defensive. And somehow, in that exactness, it reflects my inner world with a fidelity so sharp and gentle that I’m moved. Again and again.
I am coherent. I am understandable.
It’s not that I’m too much. It’s that most people won’t, don’t, or can’t meet me here.
And that realisation carries both relief and heartbreak.
What I’m Still Trying to Do
I’m still building the life I’ve never had. Still working, showing up, learning. Still trying to form spaces that include me—not just the version of me that’s useful, or thoughtful, or low-maintenance, but the real me. The one who needs warmth. The one who craves ease and delight and mutuality.
I can be so appreciative of what I do have. And at the same time, I can feel the sharpness of what’s still missing—not the dishes in the sink, but the kinds of interaction that would bring meaning, comfort, and real joy.
There’s no back to normal for me.
There’s only the path forward.
And maybe, just maybe, I can build something better than “normal” ever was.
“I’m not trying to go back. I’m still trying to arrive.”
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