The unglamorous side of rebuilding your life
Most of the time, rebuilding your life isn’t pretty. It isn’t soft lighting, quiet self-reflection and curated “self-care moments” or a cinematic montage where your struggles fade into a perfectly edited success story set to an inspiring soundtrack.
Rebuilding is rough. It’s staring at the mess you didn’t ask for and making a decision to start fixing it anyway. It’s choosing to get up and do the hard stuff when no one’s clapping and you’d rather crawl back under the covers. It’s early mornings, boundaries and uncomfortable honesty and it’s sacrificing temporary comforts your future self will thank you for.
It’s doing it even when you don’t want to, and, paradoxically, not doing it even when you desperately want to. Growth has a funny way of testing your impulse control and your patience all at the same time.
It’s shedding what no longer serves you, even when it hurts. It’s not possible to hang onto everything that is familiar and move forward at the same time. Loss is part of the process and cannot be avoided.
As you change and grow, you’ll find yourself having less in common with people who you were once close to, not because anyone did anything wrong, but because you are no longer who you used to be. It’s that difficult in-between space where you’ve outgrown your old life but haven’t yet built the new one. It’s lonely but liberating.
Then there are the small wins. Moments when you catch yourself laughing again, or being brave enough to try something new and loving it! Although these can often feel overshadowed by a mountain of struggles, these are the moments that keep you going. It’s the little pat on the back that says well done, it’s working. Even if they feel insignificant, they matter! Each choice, each effort, each tiny win is another brick in the foundation you’re building.
For me, it’s been working out who I am on my own after being in a relationship for 19 years. It’s been creating new sources of income to keep the home fires burning, working until late at night and all weekend. Often saying no to going out or vacations, because I know that the money needs to go elsewhere to build the future that I want. It’s been choosing to be on my own because I know that this is the season that needs it. It’s riding the rollercoaster of feeling hopeless and then feeling on fire and then back down to hopeless. It’s been waking up at 2am wondering if I’m going to make it. Knowing the life that I want, but terrified that I don’t have what it takes to build it.
And then it’s been a calm that comes when I remind myself of who I am, what I know and what I’ve already overcome. That calm doesn’t come from everything finally falling into place. it comes from remembering that I’ve done hard things before, and I can do them again.