In The Absence of Crisis, Who Am I?

Who are you when you’re not defending, proving, protecting, surviving?

I asked myself that question after the store was gone.

After the adrenaline had nowhere left to go.

After the avalanche ended, and I was still alive.

My worth, stitched into my work.

My energy, powered by pressure.

My direction, determined by demand.

For so long, I was driven by crisis.

Crisis made decisions easy.

Crisis gave me purpose.

Crisis kept me upright.

But crisis wasn’t the only thing that moved me.

Dreams did too.

Even in the pressure cooker, I dreamed big.

I sang, I danced, I starred on stage.

I lit up rooms and followed sparks.

I chased magic and meaning—

and I believed in both.

The crisis gave me momentum.

But the dreams gave me soul.

They worked together—

adrenaline and aspiration,

urgency and imagination.

The store wasn’t just a business.

It was my safety.

My known.

The platform from which I dreamed of different.

It grounded my crisis energy and gave my dreams a stage.

And when it was gone,

my dreams were buried too.

Not all at once—but slowly, quietly,

as I prioritized survival over imagination.

As I grieved the loss of everything familiar,

I stopped giving myself permission to want more.

I forgot how to dream outside of duty.

I stopped believing there was room for wonder.

Eventually, the crisis ended.

And so did the momentum.

It was like the boat that had been carrying me through life exploded.

And I was left floating in the sea—

surrounded by debris,

not knowing how to rebuild,

not knowing how to steer,

not even sure where I was headed.

And I mistook the disorientation for laziness.

I mistook the grief for weakness.

I mistook the softness for lack of ambition.

But the truth is: I didn’t know who I was without the fire and the safety.

The landslide took more than a building.

It took the identity I had built inside it.

It forced me into stillness I wasn’t ready for.

And it cracked open a question I didn’t know how to answer:

Who am I without the legacy?

I started rebuilding.

Slowly. Quietly.

Learning to live differently—

slower, gentler,

more rooted in self-trust instead of survival.

And then everything broke again.

My father died.

And the illusion of safety I had built inside a man I loved collapsed with the truth of who he really was.

The version of me I had been building—

the one who felt safe, held, and chosen— was blown apart.

I didn’t just lose the relationship.

I lost the home I thought I’d found inside it.

And the version of me that had only just started to bloom—

the part of me that dared to feel safe again,

that was beginning to believe in soft landings and new roots—

suddenly found herself in the ocean again, surrounded by debris.

Disoriented,

heartbroken,

grieving,

devastated by the seemingly endless devastation that has ruled my life for the last five years.

But I am not starting from nothing.

I am rebuilding on the foundation of self I laid after the landslide—

and this time, I’m making it stronger.

I’m planting joy in the cracks.

I’m letting new dreams bubble up, not to prove anything,

but simply because they’re mine—

forged from truth, rooted in inner safety,

and rising from the quiet knowing that

I am allowed to want beautiful things—and to have them.

I do trust stillness now.

But I’m also learning how to live without the hum of urgency—

without my kids’ footsteps echoing through the house,

without the chaos I once mistook for meaning.

I’m learning how to build a life not powered by adrenaline, but by alignment.

I’m learning to let new dreams emerge from a place of fullness—not lack.

From peace, not panic.

From choice, not reaction.

I can feel them surfacing,

gentle, unhurried, quietly mine.

I know how to rebuild.

I know how to rebloom.

I know what’s important to me.

I am life. I am love. I am energy.

And it’s bubbling up out of me.