Nothing Hurts More Than Starting to Heal

It'll be four years this week since I lost my mom. For a long time, I thought surviving was the hardest part. Just making it through the next hour, the next day, the next week. But nobody prepared me for what came after. The first time I laughed without feeling guilty. The moments where life slowly started asking me to participate again. Because healing isn't always what we think it will be. Sometimes it feels like betrayal. Sometimes it feels like leaving the person you love behind. In this episode, I'm sharing the most honest conversation I've had about grief, what the last four years have really looked like, turning 40 without my mom, and the unexpected lessons I've learned about choosing to keep living. If you've ever lost someone you love, if you're carrying heartbreak, or if you're trying to find your way back after life changed forever, I hope you'll borrow my belief until you find your own. Maybe healing isn't about letting go. Maybe it's finally learning how to carry them with you.

Transcript

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I don't know if I'm like really in the mood to do this one today, but we are going to do it. I was not well yesterday, but we are back. Okay. One, two, three, here we go. Nothing hurts more than starting to heal. I know that's a strange thing to say, but if you've ever lost someone you love, I think you know exactly what I mean. Oh, welcome back to navigating between the lines, you guys. My name is Maggie File. I'm your host. Warning, we are going to get a little deep today. I don't think anybody talks enough about what happens after you survive the thing you thought you wouldn't. We spend so much time talking about getting through the hardest thing that's ever happened to us, but nobody really prepares you for what comes next. The part where life starts asking you to live again, to really live. I'm gonna say it again, but nothing hurts more than starting to heal. It'll be four years this week since I lost my mom four years ago. If you would have told me I'd be sitting behind this microphone talking about grief instead of drowning in it, I would not have believed you. Because there was a time I genuinely didn't think I'd survive losing my mom. Actually, my whole life. And I don't mean survive the grief of it. I mean survive myself. Grief is funny. It doesn't really care how much time has passed or gone by. I can be folding the laundry, sitting at a baseball game, driving to the store, and all of a sudden I'm right back to those few days. I can't remember what I ate for dinner a few nights ago, but I can remember every minute of that week that my mom died. Seven hours. And that's how much warning I had. It was seven hours from hearing mom's in the ICU to hearing that she's gone. She did not make it. It's a strange thing that your entire life can divide itself into two versions because of seven hours. There's the before and there's the after. For a long time, surviving was the goal for me. Just make it to breakfast. Just make it through the day. Then tomorrow, then next week. And you keep compiling it. You know, it's like minute by minute, day by day. And eventually you're here. But nobody warned me that surviving was actually the easy part. Hear me out. The hard part came when life slowly started asking me to participate again. Sometimes it feels like betrayal to be happy in moments. I've never said this exactly like this before, and I want to make sure it comes across the way that I mean it to. It was not knowing how to live. You know, something with my mom, you know, people tell me all the time, you and your mom had such a special relationship. And we did. She was gonna live with us when she was old. And, you know, we were gonna like be one big happy family. And it wasn't because I thought we were better than that or we could like escape. It wasn't that. I wasn't naive to how quickly life can go. I just think I always thought there's no way my mom would be taken from me because like I can't live without her. I mean, we would always say that would be like, Mom, you can't die. And she's like, I'm not gonna die. I think a lot about that now because when my kids say that to me, like, mom, what happens if you die? I don't say to them, I'm not gonna die. I say to them, you're gonna be okay. And this is what we're gonna do. This is the plan. This is where you would go, this is who you would stay with. But when you have such a close relationship with whoever it is, just so happens to be my mom and a mother-daughter relationship, really is something amazing. It just, you know, you hear about people and their mom's pass away when they're 80 or 90 and it breaks them. So it's like losing her, and she was 59 years old. It just fucking, it it broke me. You know, now I'm like not to go that deep, but my mom died and it ruined my life. Everyone talks about surviving grief, how to get through it. Let yourself feel it's okay to feel things. There's an entire book section for it, advice and timelines. I think grief is so personal. It's so, so personal. It's something you have to walk through yourself, one, to fully understand it, and two, to be able to know what it feels like at all. I've said this before. I've lost grandparents and they've passed away. And because of that, I can say that there is a difference between having someone live a beautiful, long life. Of course, you don't want them to die and you want more time with them. But being able to see that beautiful life, it helps soften it a little bit, right? Like we all know that we're on a one-way street. We know that death is inevitable in our life. And what's the song? Only the good die young. I beat they don't make songs for that for a reason. People are losing their lives way too young all the time. And I hate it. I just hate it, hate it, hate it. But I think one of the biggest things that I've learned or experienced, and again, like nobody talks about what happens when life starts to feel okay again, maybe. The first time you genuinely laugh, the first vacation where you forget for a few hours, the first birthday where you're excited, the first day you realize that you didn't think about it until lunchtime. It almost feels wrong. There's like a really big guilt thing that comes along with that. Sometimes we don't want to heal because the pain is the last connection to what we have lost. Sometimes we don't want to heal because the pain is the last connection to what we have lost. I have spent the last four years going through my own journey, but I've learned that that's not true. Healing does not erase love. Healing is love finding a different place to live. Healing in this space doesn't mean we are all of a sudden back to where we were before. Have you ever cut yourself or you had an injury, maybe that you needed stitches for or something? It looks awful at first, and we're like, it will heal. And when it does heal, everyone heals differently for one, but then you're left with a scar. Like physical injuries, emotional injuries, we don't come out the same after either. If you've been here for a while, you know it's my birthday next month and I will be turning 40. Turning 40 has never been a big deal to me. I think I've always believed if you're living your life the way you want to live it, each year should feel so amazing because look at all the experiences you've collected along the way. I'm a Leo and I love a birthday. I also need to be honest with you, somehow I always cried on my birthday when I was little. I do not know how, I don't remember this fully, but my mom used to tell me, she's like, you would always cry on your birthday. One year I know she made me a Dalmatian cake and she frosted it before it was cool all the way. So it cracked down the middle. I think I cried about that. Maybe it's just all the excitement and then like the letdown after, you know, the emotions came out. I'm not sure. It's crazy because I like don't consider myself a crier. Listen, I like to say I'm not a crier. I do. I cry actually all the time, just privately in the shower, underneath my sunglasses, in the car, wherever you can't see me. I guess we know I have a lot of feelings, even if I'm not always saying them out loud. Thankfully for this podcast space, because I'm saying them out loud all the time. Okay, I gotta get back on track, but I am grateful to be laughing in here a little bit. I was really scared for this. If this was yesterday, I don't think I would be able to make it through this. Since my mom died, I kind of hate my birthday. I mean, I still have had a celebration every year and I commit to it and I want to do those things, but my emotions come over me and I shut down at the end of it. This year feels different. I'm trying to make it feel different because it's a new decade. 40 is supposed to be a big deal. It is a big deal. Big picture. I love where my life is, my kids, this passion project, caring less about what everyone thinks. But I never imagined turning 40 without my mom. So I'm having this weird tension, like I can be grateful for my life while grieving the life that I thought I'd have. You know, when you look at decades you've lived, you can kind of loop them all in, even though it's 10 years. I know it's a long time, but it's like the teen years. You're like high school and college, and there's so much youngness and fun and learning while feeling like literally everything. 20s was just the best, like literally what a ride the 20s are. When I think about my 30s, it's impossible not to think about losing my mom. That became the decade. And I hate that because there was so much beautiful life inside those 10 years, too. There is so much beautiful life inside those 10 years. To me, I've looped it in and my heart's been broken for so much of it, is what it feels like. There's guilt in that too, because I actually loved turning 30. I was excited for it. I had two little kids. I don't want to be like, I want to move on from that time. I don't even want to move on from this grief. I just wish so badly she was still here. That's the biggest thing. There is nothing anybody can do to fix it. You cannot fix it. There's nothing you can say. There's no amount of hugs, caring for you, care packages, whatever, feel good stuff that fixes that hole that's left inside of you. And like just driving here today, it's a Tuesday. The Starbucks line is full. People are going to the bank. People are driving to work. People are outside walking. And you're like, it's a normal day. Everything seems normal. But then you're like, and you can call me crazy. I'm like 170,000 some people did not wake up today. And I think I'm always just like in this like state of thinking so deeply about so many of these things. You think I need to talk to like a physiologist? Is that the right set I need to do? But the guilt is real, you guys. Like if I'm fully present in my own life, somehow I'm leaving her behind. Joy and grief live side by side. You know I keep cards. And for my 30th birthday card, my mom's card said, the doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live. May you continue to open doors that create a life of meaning, integrity, and heart. The back says, Life is a celebration of the soul. It's funny, you know, because this card is sitting, like a stack of them where I get ready every day, kind of like over on the side. And this one caught my eye last week. It like kind of like peeked out at me. And so I pulled it out and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is the card. It's almost like I needed to find it that week. But I keep thinking of that line. Life is a celebration of the soul. I said earlier I didn't know how to live without my mom. The truth is, I do know how now. I just wish I didn't have to. That's all it is. Don't really want to accept it. But my mom's voice has been ringing around in my head so much lately. It's like she's pushing me because I know exactly what she would say. She would tell me to keep living, keep laughing, love those kids, give them hugs for me, keep building, be happy, Mags, and who cares? If you were to meet my mom, you know she's just like a bubbly, happy person. She's always excited, always like, what are we doing? Let's do this. She's always in the mood to go do something. She also was like a behind the scenes. You know, she like would make sure all the food was ready. She wanted everybody to eat. She wanted everybody to be happy. And then she would just kind of like sit behind. She didn't want to be like in the middle of everything going on. If we're talking birthdays, I think a lot about my 21st birthday. She had all these like cute little like necklaces, and all my friends came and she was there like right to the end, feeding us. She always would be like feeding us at the end. You guys need some pizza, you need to soak up the alcohol, have some water. She was just like the best, the best in every way. It's funny because of course I miss all the big things. And like when the kids have birthdays or the kids have games or something, I wish more than anything that she could be there for all of it. Or that I could call her to tell her about it. I called my mom all the time, all day, every day we talked. And she knew everything. And when I say everything, I mean everything. From when I was in college to when I got married to having kids. You know, to today I would still call her. What invitation do you like better? Do you like this pillow or that pillow? Why am I losing my hair? Did you have the sapneteal? When you were younger, did you do X, Y, and Z? I mean, we just talked about everything and what a gift that is. I think if there's anything I can leave this on, I hope today's podcast is a message of living more than a message of grief. I thought this 10 years ago when I first thought about this podcast idea. We get one life. Not living it completely is doing the most disservice to the ones who gave it to us. And something that I really think about a lot right now, probably because it's natural to reflect on four years ago and the time that's passed. Like what a I don't even want to call it a comeback story, but like what a like I'm still here. And like thank God, like what a gift. Because when you have those feelings, like you don't want to wake up the next morning. It does not feel good. And it feels lonely, maybe a little hopeless. There are some people in the world who will tell you, get up, go outside, take a walk. You gotta like push through it and get through it. I'm probably one of those people. And then now sitting on the other side of it, it's like you have to feel all of that sometimes to get to the other side. If you're in the middle of a heartbreak or a rough season and you feel like there's no way up, you probably won't believe me, and I wouldn't have believed me either. But one day you'll be making plans and you'll realize that you survived it. Not because the love is gone, but because you carry them with you. Four years later, I can still barely believe that my mom is not here. I still pretend like she's alive sometimes. Like I really do. I still reach to call her. I cry more than you could guess. But I'm here living, raising these kids and loving them so hard, building this community, turning 40, missing my mom every single day, and somehow loving my life at the exact same time. Maybe that's what healing really is. It isn't leaving them behind, it's finally letting them come with you. I survived the version of me that truly believed I couldn't survive this. And if you're listening today, wondering if you'll ever find your way back, I hope you borrow my belief until you find your own. Because one day you'll look around and you'll realize you're still here. And on the other side of survival, you'll see the beauty again. As always, you guys, thanks for being here with me, listening, sharing in the conversation, navigating between the lines on Instagram, message me. I always love to hear it. And I will see you next week.