How I’m beginning to bloom again
There were years that felt like molasses.
Not the golden kind that drizzles sweet over pancakes in a sunlit morning kitchen, but the thick, sticky, midnight kind. The one that oozes and clings and fogs the eyes with its slow, sludgy hum. It was the kind of dark that makes you question if there ever was a light.
I don’t know how else to say it, except that life got heavy. Like, knock-the-wind-out-of-your-soul heavy. And the worst part? It didn’t come all at once. No. It dripped. Dripped like a leaky faucet of cosmic absurdity. One heartbreak, two heartbreaks, ten. A slow unraveling of dreams I once danced with. Nervous systems fried. Pipes burst (figuratively and literally). Grief in places I didn’t know grief could live.
There were days I couldn’t tell if I was dissolving or just being slowly reassembled by invisible hands. Everything that used to feel familiar felt far away – my voice, my joy, my center. Movement felt mechanical. Words escaped me. My body became an unanswered question.
And still…
And still, the world kept spinning. People kept smiling. Sunsets kept happening. I wanted to demand a pause from the cosmic game. Or a refund. Or at least a celestial customer support line.
Somewhere in that thick soup of ache, I remembered something I once said:
“It’s said that life only gives us what we can handle. And I believe it, and I question it when the explosive shit storms destroy the pipes. The beautiful paradox is that life gives us what we don’t think we can handle. It will always push and pry and attempt to stretch us faaaar beyond what we think we can navigate so we have to dig way deeper than past digs. The puzzle pieces come together way too slow but in perfect timing. And slower than is comfortable, the lessons bring bigger insights than could ever have been seen or imagined without the painful stretch. But it’s nearly impossible to see this in the midst of a massive reconstruction. What a mystery stew.”
Yeah. That stew.
I’ve been swimming in it.
And lately? Something is shifting. The molasses is thinning. The stew is seasoning into something… else. Something nourishing. Not without its bite, but full of soul. It’s like little flickers of aliveness are waking up in my bones. Like my body is beginning to remember joy without needing proof. I’m starting to feel myself again. Not the old self, not the one before the storms. But a newer, rootier, grittier me. A version that smells like rain on dry earth. That sings again – quietly, humbly. That dares to bloom without needing it to be a performance.
It started small
It started small. A walk where I noticed the wind. A stretch that felt like prayer. A moment with someone where I didn’t have to pretend. A laugh that cracked through the fog like morning sun. And breath. So much breath.
I’m still in the rebuilding, but the scaffolding is made of softer things now—compassion, laughter, dance breaks, coffee-stained journal pages, weird dreams, and nervous system tenderness. I’m letting the mystery stew keep cooking. But now I stir it with curiosity instead of dread. I’m learning to trust the slow simmer.
If you’re in your own molasses moment, I see you. I feel you. And I’m whispering this with a hand over my heart: You are not broken. You’re becoming.
The stew sucks. But maybe, just maybe, it’s cooking up something wildly magical. And slower than you’d like. But maybe, just in time.
With so so much love and appreciation,
Meghan