Growing up in a small town in the Midwest, I always felt like I was given a bag of puzzle pieces of my soul I had to carry around with me. When I was young, some of the pieces naturally connected from shifting around in the bag, but it wasn’t until college I metaphorically sat down and started consciously putting the puzzle together.
After connecting the edges, life happened. Distractions happened. Relationships happened. I spent a lot of years living the way I thought would make me feel safe, feel loved, and feel accepted. I was always able to take on a lot, not realizing that I didn’t have to. I held a lot of stress and unhealed pain and grief for a lot of people, including my partner. I had no capacity to hold space for myself anymore and I could feel me slipping away under a veil of disillusion, not recognizing the person I saw in the mirror anymore. My puzzle was left untouched, gathering dust, for several years.
Losing my soul dog, my partner of the time, and moving to a new city all lead me to the clear realizations that readied me to move on and prioritize myself for the first time.