Fragments of Cassandra

This month's full moon asked me to sit with myself in complete honesty.

Not with the version of me I wish I was.
Not with the version grief tried to convince me I had become.
But with the person who remained underneath it all.

During my meditation, I began peeling back the layers of my heart.

The first emotion I met was emptiness.
Then anger.
Then sadness.
Beneath those were grief, loneliness, insecurity, and confusion.
And resting quietly beneath every one of them...
was hope.

I couldn't help but laugh.
Because the realization arrived so gently that it caught me off guard.
Every wound I was carrying had been rooted in hope.

Hope that love would return.
Hope that people would choose me.
Hope that the future I imagined would somehow still become reality.

When those hopes began to fracture, everything above them fractured too.
So I thanked each emotion for carrying me as far as it could.
Then I released them.

Into the empty space they left behind, I invited light.
Love.
Joy.

I imagined brilliant white light washing over me, soft pink wrapping itself around my heart, and green blooming within me like new life after a forest fire.

My body softened.
It remembered what peace felt like.

This past month has been one of the hardest seasons of my life.
I have experienced grief, heartbreak, loss, and a darkness that I didn't know I was capable of carrying.

Somewhere in the middle of it all, my mind chose numbness.
It built walls where my heart once stood unguarded.
I understand why it did.
It was trying to protect me.
But numbness is not who I am.

At my core, I am warm.
I am joyful.
I am someone who loves with her whole heart.

I refuse to let grief convince me that I am not loved.
And I refuse to let it convince me that I am anything less than the warmth I have always carried.

This month also showed me truths I can no longer ignore.
I see myself changing.
I am emerging from this experience stronger, wiser, and more discerning.
Not colder for the sake of pushing the world away, but gentler with myself and more careful about who I allow access to my heart.

I also see my future more clearly than I have in a long time.
My healing is no longer something I hope will happen.
It is becoming the life I am intentionally building.

I've realized that for most of my life, I held everyone else to a higher tier than I held myself.
I gave people my whole heart in hopes of repairing theirs, leaving myself half alive in the process.

Now, there is nothing left to pour into people who refuse to hold what I freely offer.
This chapter of my life has a name.
Metamorphosis.

This month, I choose to let go.
I am letting go of believing that if I love enough, someone will eventually stay.
I am letting go of clinging to hopes that keep me trapped instead of setting me free.
I am letting go of giving pieces of myself to people who have not earned them.

And I am letting go of self harm in an attempt to quiet the pain inside my mind.
That version of me was trying to survive.
I honor her.
But she is no longer the version I want to become.

I have spent so much of my energy trying to force puzzle pieces together because I was terrified of what would happen if they didn't fit.

This next moon cycle, I choose something different.
I choose acceptance.
I choose to trust that what is meant for me will never require me to abandon myself in order to receive it.

If it belongs in my life, it will arrive.
If it leaves, it was making room for something that can truly stay.

This month, I am proud of myself for finding my way back to writing.
For a while, I believed the grief had stolen my creativity.
Instead, it deepened it.
Writing found me again, and through it, I found pieces of myself.

I also found joy in unexpected places.
Food began to taste like comfort again.
The outdoors reminded me that healing doesn't happen within four walls.
The sun, the wind, and the quiet rhythm of nature gently welcomed me back into the world.

And perhaps the greatest change of all...
I am ready to care for myself again.
I am ready to nourish my body.
To return to the gym.
To become strong not only in mind, but in body.
Not because I need to become someone new-
but because I deserve to care for the person I already am.

If the woman I was one month ago could see me now, I think she would simply whisper,
"Thank you."

Thank you for choosing to stay.
Thank you for choosing life.
Thank you for believing there were still places left to travel, people left to love, forests left to walk through, words left to write, and dreams left to build.

Tonight's full moon is not the end of my healing.
It is the beginning of living it.
I leave this moon with less fear.
Less resistance.
Less need to control what was never mine to control.
And I step into this next chapter carrying something quieter than hope.

Trust.

With Love,
Cassandra