The Drowning Before the Light

Do you ever feel like you’re reaching for the light—knowing it’s there, almost within reach—but every time you get close, a wave of everything you’ve been trying to outrun

pulls you back under?

That’s what it felt like for me.

One moment I was climbing toward something better.

The next—submerged again.

Underwater.

Gasping.

What I didn’t realize then was that this moment of drowning was also the beginning of emotional healing.

Years of barely staying afloat behind me.

The exhaustion in my chest.

The quiet panic of trying not to go under.

I remember wondering how I even got there.

The choices I made.

The shame I carried.

The parts of myself I learned to hide.

The emotions I refused to feel.

All of it sat inside me like weight.

Dragging me down.

And yet—even there—I still dreamed.

Of freedom.

Of days when the tightness around my heart would soften.

When I wouldn’t feel so heavy inside my own body.

There were days I felt numb—body, mind, spirit.

Drifting.

Floating.

Reaching.

Never quite breaking the surface of something new.

Something redeeming.

Something real.

This is where many of us fall apart.

But it’s also where something begins to shift.

Because this is the moment where we either remain in the heaviness of our pain—

or something in us begins, slowly and imperfectly, to move toward the light.

When I was searching for love, forgiveness, identity—anything to fill the emptiness—I kept losing myself.

I confused attention with connection.

I mistook being wanted for being valued.

I gave pieces of myself to places that couldn’t hold them

and called it love.

I didn’t know then that I was abandoning myself

again and again.

There’s a kind of pain that’s hard to explain—the pain of a woman whose innocence was taken too early.

Whose coping turned into self-destruction.

Whose attempts to protect herself

only carved deeper wounds.

We don’t talk enough about how coping doesn’t always look like healing.

Sometimes it’s reaching for what feels familiar.

For me, it looked like numbing and the comfort of being desired.

A quiet unraveling beneath it all.

And still—something in me wouldn’t go silent.

Something that nudged.

Pressed.

Refused to let me forget my own worth.

I’m grateful for the hands that reached for me.

For the faith that met me underwater.

For the people who reminded me who I was

when I couldn’t see her anymore.

I can see a future now—nothing like the one my past had planned for me.

But I had to see just how lost I was

before I could understand what it meant

to come back to myself.

Somehow, even after everything,

a woman with a warrior heart

can step away from the places that dimmed her—once she realizes she deserves more

than what kept her stuck.

The truth is, we don’t heal alone.

We heal in spaces that protect our light.

That honor it.

That allow it to exist

without being tested, taken, or dimmed.

And that’s how you find your way out.

Not by being perfect.

Not by pretending you’re strong.

But by realizing the light you’ve been reaching for

is real—and it’s been there all along.

The drowning isn’t the end of your story.

It’s the moment just before you break the surface.

Before you breathe again.

Before you remember who you are.

The light is still there.

Reach for it—again and again.

Because as long as you are breathing,

it is never too late

to come back to yourself.