The Person I Used to Be

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The person I used to be was obsessed with life. She was joy. She couldn’t get enough of living, of how beautiful the world is, of how amazing it is to be alive, of how much she never wanted it to end.

The person I used to be was tethered, grounded in the safety of the one relationship that bound all the pieces of her life together, the one that would carry her into forever, the one that would never end.

The person I used to be knew who her “go to” person was for everything: decisions to be made, advice to be had, jokes to be told, guardianship to grant. She had a person who could be trusted to raise her children, to make medical decisions on her behalf, to manage her money. She had someone she would trust wholeheartedly to do exactly what she would have wanted. She had someone who knew her inside and out, who knew exactly what mattered most, exactly how things should be done, exactly how to honor all the truths of her life.

The person I used to be was whole. She knew sadness, but she didn’t know how it feels to be obliterated, to be asked to carry on living even when half of her is missing, even when entire pieces of her have died, even when everything suddenly means nothing.

The person that I used to be didn’t trust herself. Didn’t trust herself to know for sure that her sister was dying, even when the doctors said that everything was fine. She deferred to the “experts,” all while she felt her sister’s spirit slipping away, all while she watched things go into further and further stages of decline, all while she held on to the false hope that there was more time despite everything that her intuition was telling her.

The person I used to be trusted that small odds were just that - small odds. She didn’t know that a 1 in 2 million chance means that someone has to be that 1 in 2 million. She didn’t know that the 1 in 2 million would end up being one of the loves of her life.

The person I used to be thought the unimaginable could never happen. She didn’t know that life is one big game of roulette.

The person I used to be is someone I both envy and pity. Because she still feels whole, because she still knows joy - and because she doesn’t yet know what’s coming.

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