MADE WITH WANDERLOVE

No one really prepares you for how hard life can be. There’s no handbook for divorce, lost friendships, layoffs, burnout, grief, or the tidal wave of emotions that hit when life throws a curveball or a slap in the face.

I laugh now thinking back to my parent’s life and their exhaustion, short tempers, the moments they seemed so overwhelmed. As a kid, I’d wonder, what’s wrong with them? But now I get it. I understand the chaos they were navigating: raising a strong-willed, boundary-pushing child with endless health challenges while trying to hold it all together.

When I think about those small, quiet moments like my parents laughing, playing takhteh nard (backgammon), teasing each other, pretending everything was fine.  I see now that beneath the smiles were layers of worry. Worry about money, my future, and how they’d keep moving forward through it all.

The last six years of my life have been a blur, stitched together by flashes of deep sadness. The person I loved and trusted most walked away from our marriage, leaving behind a storm of unanswered questions. It happened at the worst possible time.  Right as the world shut down in a global pandemic and I had just been laid off.

Months later, I lost a dear friend who had spent decades fighting a cruel disease. And once again, no one told me how to care for my mind when exhaustion felt like drowning and when disappearing seemed like the easiest escape.

The biggest illusion we buy into is that we have time.  Time to hang out, to laugh together, to say I love you, or to sit in silence and simply be present. But life has a way of reminding us how fragile that illusion is.

My world shattered again in October of 2022 when my precious aunt passed away. A part of my heart broke beyond repair. Breathing felt impossible for months after her death, and even now, there are days I feel sucker-punched by the grief. This week has been one of those times. I still catch myself reaching for the phone after yoga, ready to call her on my drive home and then remembering she’s no longer here to answer.

The last six years have been an ebb and flow of grief and love. Somehow, my heart managed to open again.  I loved in a way I never thought possible, and for a beautiful moment, that love was reflected back to me. But the stars didn’t align, and God had other plans. I know, deep in my soul, that I was placed in his life for a divine reason.

There isn’t a single day that passes without a thought of him. Because grief lives wherever love once did and sometimes still does. I grieve the marriage I lost, the version of life that could have been, and the moments that never came to be.

Maybe my heart lingers on the past because the weight of it still sits so heavily within me. I pray that one day this heaviness transforms and flows outward into the boundless love that exists in the universe. Because some days, it feels too heavy to hold alone.