Who the hell am I?

There was a version of me once.
I don’t remember everything about her, but I know she laughed louder.
She had plans — not just survival tactics.
She believed in things. In herself. In the future.

But now?

Now I walk into rooms and forget why I’m there.
I sit in silence and feel a thousand thoughts crash into each other.
I scroll through photos from years ago and wonder who that girl was —
The one with eyes full of ideas and a heart that didn’t feel so heavy.

The truth is:
I don’t know who I am anymore.

For years, my identity was reduced to a case number.
A file.
A mistake someone else claimed I made.
I became “the mom with a case.”
“The girl with a record.”
“The one who lost her baby.”

My name didn’t matter.
My dreams didn’t matter.
My voice didn’t matter.

And now that the noise has quieted,
Now that the kids are home,
Now that I’ve fought to the bitter end and crawled out of that hell—

I’m left with the question:
Who am I now that no one’s watching?

I used to think healing meant “getting back to who I was.”
But she’s gone.
She had to leave.
She didn’t survive what I went through — I did.

And I’m not the same.
I don’t want to be.
Because the version of me that exists now is forged.
Built.
Welded together with fire and silence and faith and pain.

But rebuilding isn’t pretty.
It’s not a highlight reel.
It’s messy closets and late-night breakdowns.
It’s starting a blog and not knowing what the hell to write.
It’s watching other moms seem so normal while you’re still double-checking every diaper for bruises.
It’s dreaming again and wondering if you’re even allowed to.

Sometimes, I wish someone would hand me a map.

“Here’s who you’re supposed to be now.”
“Here’s how to feel confident again.”
“Here’s how to stop being afraid of hope.”

But instead, I get stillness.
A quiet room.
A chance to ask myself the kind of questions no one ever asked me before:

What do I want?
What feels sacred to me?
If no one was watching, who would I become?

If you’re in this place too —
This weird in-between where you’re not who you were, but you don’t know who you’re becoming —
Let me tell you something:

You’re not lost.
You’re in progress.

You’re not broken — you’re unlayering.
You’re discovering.
You’re letting go of the version of you that had to survive —
So you can meet the version who gets to live.

And that… is holy work.

🕯 If you’re in your identity rebuild era, what’s one thing you used to love that you want to bring back? What’s one thing you’re dreaming of trying now? Let me know in the comments or just whisper it back to yourself. That’s how we start.