The Grief of Realizing

I thought that by now, it would all be behind me.

When I ran away from home nearly ten years ago, I imagined that by the time I reached this point in my life—approaching 25, building a career I love, surrounded by people who support me—the past would feel distant. Like something I had outgrown, like a chapter fully closed.

But lately, I’ve been feeling something I didn’t expect: grief.

A deep, aching grief for the childhood I never got to have. For the safety and softness that should have been mine but never was. For the sacrifices I made just to survive, for the things I had to give up before I even knew what they were worth.

It’s strange, really. Because I am proud of myself. I have done things I never could have imagined when I left home all those years ago. I have carved out a life, a career, a sense of purpose. I have built community, found people who love me, and created something meaningful.

And yet, there are still moments, big and small, where I feel the weight of what’s missing. When I achieve something incredible and instinctively wish I could call my grandmother. When I hear friends talk about going home for the holidays and realize I don’t have a home like that to return to. When I see glimpses of the care and support I once longed for in other people’s lives and feel, just for a second, the sharp sting of absence.

I think, for a long time, I believed that if I just kept moving forward, the grief would disappear. That success and independence would somehow erase the pain of what I lost. But I know now that healing doesn’t work like that. Grief isn’t something you outrun, it’s something you learn to carry.

I move through this grief and am learning to sit with that. To not let it harden me, but to let it guide me toward deeper self-love and self-compassion.

Some days, that feels powerful. Other days, it makes me want to isolate completely. It’s hard work, learning to be enough for yourself, especially when so much of your life has been spent trying to survive.

But I’m working through it. Through therapy, through reflection, through learning how to be gentle with myself. And as painful as it is at times, I am hopeful.

Because even though I don’t have the family I once wished for, I do have love. I have friends who show up for me. I have chosen family who remind me, every day, that I am worthy of care and tenderness. I have built something real, something strong, something beautiful.

And so, I am learning to hold both truths at once: I am grieving, and I am growing. I am mourning, and I am thriving. I am moving forward, and I am still healing.

I think that is what it means to keep going.