I was standing in the ocean when I realized something I don’t think I’ve ever felt before. Not happiness. Not excitement. Not relief.
Peace.
I wasn’t swimming. I wasn’t floating. I was simply letting the waves carry me, rising and falling with the rhythm of the ocean. Looking toward the horizon, listening to the waves crash against the shore before retreating back into the sea.
Everyone else slowly disappeared. There was just the water. And me.
Then a thought quietly entered my mind.
I’m not bracing anymore.
The realization unfolded slowly like the tide.
For years, my body has lived in anticipation of the next thing.
The next disappointment.
The next rejection.
The next betrayal.
The next diagnosis.
The next surgery.
The next court date.
The next unknown.
Last summer, I was finishing radiation while bracing for my final exchange reconstruction surgery.
The summer before that, I had just completed chemotherapy and was bracing for radiation.
The summer before that, I was navigating the aftermath of domestic violence and the legal system that followed.
And if I’m honest…
It started long before cancer.
Long before that relationship.
Long before adulthood.
I spent much of my life believing I had to stay ready.
Ready to become whoever I needed to be.
Ready to earn love.
Ready to perform.
Ready to survive.
Looking back, I can see that bracing wasn’t just something I did.
It became who I was.
My nervous system had learned that survival was safer than peace.
It believed that safety was temporary and that the next storm was always on its way.
Recently, through my trauma training, I’ve been learning that healing begins with safety. When our nervous system finally believes we’re safe, it can stop living in survival mode and begin to heal.
Standing in that ocean, I realized something profound. For the first time in my life… I felt safe.
Not because I had all the answers.
I don’t.
I don’t know what job comes next.
I don’t know exactly what my future looks like.
I don’t know how every piece of my life will unfold.
But something inside me has changed.
I’ve stopped believing that uncertainty automatically means danger.
I’ve stopped trying to control every outcome.
I’ve stopped exhausting myself trying to outrun what hasn’t even happened.
I will pray.
Then I’ll pick up the oars and row.
I’ll do the work that’s mine to do.
And when it rains, I’ll let it rain.
I have faced the darkest nights of my life. I survived them.
Not because I controlled them. But because I walked through them and grew despite them. That has changed the way I meet uncertainty.
Today, I don’t meet it with fear. I meet it with trust. Not because I believe life won’t be difficult again. But because I finally believe that whatever comes next, I will be okay.
Peace, I’ve learned, isn’t the absence of uncertainty.
It’s the absence of needing to brace for it.
Maybe that’s what healing feels like.
Not extraordinary joy.
Not constant happiness.
Just the quiet freedom of realizing your body no longer believes it has to prepare for the next blow.
Standing in the ocean, I wasn’t searching for anything.
I wasn’t asking for answers.
I wasn’t trying to figure out my future.
For the first time…I wasn’t fighting the current.
I was simply allowing it to carry me.
And after a lifetime of surviving…That felt like coming home.
