Distractions

For twenty years, my life was filled with experiences so big they took up all the space inside me. Not distractions in the shallow sense, but events that demanded everything I had. Infertility. Quitting my job. Gastric surgery. Learning to run. My dad’s illness. My dad’s death.

Each one required my full attention. Each one reshaped me. Each one kept me moving forward without any room to feel anything else.

When you are living inside chapters that heavy, you do not notice the quieter parts of your emotional life. You do not notice what hurts. You do not notice what is missing. You do not notice what needs tending. You are too busy surviving.

And then life shifts. The crises end. The grief settles. The routines become familiar. The noise fades.

Suddenly, for the first time in twenty years, there is quiet. A quiet where I can pause. A quiet where I can think. A quiet where I finally have the time and space to feel the things I never had room for before.

Nothing new happened. I just finally have the bandwidth to notice what has been waiting underneath all along.

Twenty years of distraction kept me moving. Now the quiet is teaching me how to listen.