Where Love Heals

August 13, 2017

I woke up early and went for a run. It was cold—the kind that bites at your skin and settles in your chest—but I ran anyway. Hard. Like if I didn’t stop moving, I wouldn’t have to feel what was chasing me. By the time I got back, my body was shaking, lungs burning, heart pounding so loud it felt like it might break through my ribs. But it didn’t matter. None of it worked. It was still there, sitting inside me, untouched by all the effort.

I made an egg sandwich. Ate yogurt straight from the fridge. The sun was out, bright and almost mocking. It was supposed to be 69 degrees—perfect, effortless, the kind of day people look forward to. But it didn’t feel real. It felt staged, like the world was pretending everything was okay and I was the only one who knew it wasn’t.

I took a bubble bath, though I couldn’t tell you why. Maybe I wanted something soft, something quiet, something that didn’t hurt. The jacuzzi was too loud, the water too hot, and I just laid there staring, my mind running through everything I still had to get done. I remember thinking how strange it was to be planning an ending while doing something so ordinary. When I got out, I scrubbed myself in the shower like I could wash off the heaviness, like I could clean away whatever was wrong with me. I couldn’t.

There was so much to do, and only three days left before I disappeared.

I got ready like it was any other day—dried my hair, curled it, mascara, lip gloss. I looked normal. Alive. Like someone with plans, with a future. Not someone quietly putting everything in place to end her life. I booked a hotel and called it a “work trip.” That was the story. Simple, believable, clean. The letters were already written—handwritten, each name carefully placed on the front, each goodbye sealed shut so I wouldn’t be tempted to change my mind.

I called an attorney to make sure everything would hold up. I needed control over something, at least this. I made sure she got nothing. Not a single piece of what was left of me. Everything would go to the people who didn’t break me. I handled every detail, down to recording a video, telling them I loved them, trying to make it sound softer than it was—like this wouldn’t completely destroy them.

I remember thinking, this is it. I’m going to end my life. I’m going to make this stop.

At first, I thought about the people I love—wondering if they would understand or if they would just be angry, if they would hate me for leaving like this. I had been through pain before. Real pain. The kind that knocks you down and leaves bruises you carry for years. But I had always gotten back up. Always found a way to keep going, to smile, to function, to convince everyone—including myself—that I was okay. This time was different. This time didn’t feel like heartbreak. It felt like absence, like something essential inside me had gone missing and I didn’t know how to get it back.

I had spent months trying to rebuild after everything that happened the summer before, carefully putting myself back together piece by piece. But in July, it all came undone. Every bit of progress, every fragile repair—gone. All that was left was emptiness. That’s the only word that ever felt accurate. Just empty. The one thing that had been holding me together disappeared, and whatever was left of me went with it.

I tried—God, I tried—to stay. To be happy. To fight for myself. To wake up and exist like a normal person. But everything felt heavy. Being around people felt heavy. Being alone felt worse. I didn’t understand how I could be surrounded by people who loved me and still feel completely alone. I reached out. I called, I texted—friends nearby, friends across the country. Everyone was busy. And somehow, in my mind, that meant I didn’t matter. Like I had already started to disappear and no one noticed.

The person I shared a bed with felt like they were slowly destroying me. Sleep felt impossible. Waking up felt worse. And the only thought that kept repeating was that I had failed—at life, at love, at holding everything together for as long as I had.

If I’m honest, I think this was always written for me. Like some part of me ended on April 8, 1996—and everything after was just breathing, not living. I’ve been chasing peace ever since, and no matter how far I go, something in me keeps pulling me back to this same place.

I was walking through the house one last time, checking things off, making sure everything was done, when my phone went off. An email. I almost ignored it, but something made me look.

Scott. My mentor.

Thirty minutes earlier, I had sent him a message—one last attempt, a quiet, desperate reach for something, anything. I didn’t expect a response. He was busy, important. I didn’t think I mattered enough for him to answer. I didn’t think I was worth saving.

The truth is, I hadn’t felt alive in a long time.

And by then, it was already too late.

I had taken enough to end it and I was fading into the darkness…

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December 12, 2021

Five days later, I walked out of the hospital. There wasn’t some big, life-changing realization waiting for me. No clarity, no sudden sense that everything would be okay. But something small shifted, and it was enough. I left the relationship that was killing me, and I never went back.

I started over. Slowly, messily, painfully. I learned how to forgive—other people, but mostly myself. I learned how to sit with my own thoughts without wanting to disappear, how to exist without constantly feeling like I was drowning. I found people—real people—who love me in a way that doesn’t hurt, that doesn’t take pieces of me with it.

Somewhere along the way, I found my worth. I found my value. And for the first time in a long time, I feel free. Not perfect, not untouched by everything I’ve been through—but free in a way that feels real.

The kind of pain that makes you want to disappear will lie to you. It will convince you there’s no way out, that this is all there is. But there is a way through it, even if you can’t see it yet. Even if all you can do is breathe and survive the next minute.

Someone will love you through it.

And sometimes, that someone has to be you.

JMS