Imagine weâre sitting in your new living room, maybe with a slightly-too-small box still waiting to be unpacked in the corner, tea mugs in hand. Itâs been a while, but the dust is starting to settle.
âRemember those first few weeks, after everything⌠fell apart?â I start, stirring my tea. âIt felt like walking through treacle, didnât it? Everything was just⌠heavy. You couldnât see the way out, just the mess.â
You nod, a small, wry smile touching your lips.
âYeah,â I continue, âI remember us just talking, sometimes for hours. Not always fixing anything straight away, but just⌠you sharing what was going on inside, the fears, the anger, the sheer exhaustion. And me just listening, mostly. Making sure you knew I was right there with you, not judging, just⌠present. I think that bit was important, wasnât it? Knowing there was someone you could just unload on, completely, without having to put a brave face on.â
I pause, looking around the room. âIt took a while, but gradually, the conversations started to shift, didnât they? Less about dissecting what had happened, and more about⌠well, about this. About what comes next. What you actually wanted your life to look like, not just escaping the old one. Remember when we started talking about finding a place? At first, it was just âget me out of here,â but then you started talking about the light, the garden youâd always dreamed of, a kitchen big enough to bake in againâŚâ
âThat felt better,â you chime in softly.
âExactly! It was like suddenly there was something positive to aim for, a picture forming. And we talked about the small things, too. Like, what was one tiny step you could take this week towards feeling a bit more⌠like you? Maybe just sorting out one box, or calling that friend you hadnât spoken to in ages. Not trying to leap to the end, but just finding the very next stone to step on.â
I take a sip of my tea. âAnd through it all, even when you were feeling completely floored, there were these moments, werenât there? Like how you somehow managed to keep working, or the way you handled that tricky bit with the paperwork, or just getting yourself out of bed on the worst days. Little bits of stubborn strength that were always there. We tried to keep those in focus, didnât we? Reminding ourselves of what you could do, what you were good at, even when everything felt wrong. Thinking about times youâd handled tough stuff before and how you did it.â
âItâs funny too,â I muse, âhow you got so good at knowing what you wanted in a house. After seeing a few duds, you developed this⌠almost like an internal checklist. You could walk in and within minutes, you just knew if it was a possibility or not. Layout, feel, light⌠it was like your own personal sorting system was running, filtering out the noise.â
âAnd for me,â I add, setting my mug down, âI always tried to just⌠offer possibilities, I guess? Ask questions that might lead you to an answer, rather than giving you the answer. Throwing ideas out there without saying âyou must do this.â That way, every decision was completely yours. If something worked, great, you did that! If it didnât, well, it was the choice you made at the time, and you learned from it. It felt important that you were always the one driving, the one owning the path you were taking.â
I smile at you. âLook where that path led you. It wasnât easy, but you found your way here. And Iâm just really damn proud of you.â
