I Thought I Was Writing About Love

But the truth was buried under years of heartbreak.

I’ve learned to survive by hiding the loudest parts of me.

For the past five years, I’ve held it all inside — the grief, the shame, the utter despair that landed upon me and planted its flag. It’s been too embarrassing to admit, the wounds too raw to expose.

And when the universe gave me an opportunity to run, I did. I ran fast and far. I became a hermit, isolated in the real and metaphorical sense. I let no one in. Returned no one’s calls.

It’s been five years of learning how to show up as my own knight in shining armor so that when I reveal the madness… the ache, the chaos of my soul, the truth… when people decide I am just too much for them to handle, I won’t be sent to the depths of despair.

I used to hide this chaos in silence. In white lies that would keep people near. It wasn’t just people-pleasing. It wasn’t just fear. It was terror — layered over time, steel plate upon steel plate, around a heart that desperately wanted to be felt.

The YMCA Summers

Every summer morning from when I was 6 to 9, my mom dropped me off at a YMCA camp in the heart of Rhode Island. Hundreds of acres of tall trees, open fields, and picturesque lakes that taught me to swim and stay afloat in a canoe. We made crafts, sang songs around a fire, and felt overall… free.

Every morning, I’d run straight to the counselors and wrap my little arms around them like joy itself depended on it. I adored them. I adored camp. Camp felt like magic. Like home. Like belonging.

And then one summer, something shifted. Just a flash — someone whispering, “That little girl sure does hug a lot.”

It stung. It felt like shame. Like wanting connection was too much. And after that? I put up a guard and made sure to stop myself from reaching for the hug, even though that was my intuition.

The Moves Never Stopped

In the middle of my 9th summer, my mom moved us across the country. We stayed briefly with my grandmother until my mom found a job. I walked home alone every day and spent hours waiting for her to get home from work. I kept busy with my dolls, practicing dance… I was never alone. I had my imagination. But someone told a teacher, the teacher called CPS. And I was back with a babysitter who cared nothing at all for me.

Two years later my mom moved in with her new boyfriend, a controlling man, an hour away. But for me, it didn’t matter where we went… if I had her, I was okay. But he didn’t want a teenager and all that came with it. At 13, we were back in her car.

She found us a room to rent… to give me a place to lay my head. When my tap shoes scuffed the kitchen floor, we were out yet again. Eventually, she got us a one-bedroom apartment near my new school. I clung to school and dance class like a lifeline.

At 15, I wanted a friend to spend the night. Her mom wouldn’t allow it. Because we lived in an apartment. My refuge… to her, was a threat.

I Moved for My Brother

Around this time, my dad in Missouri was about to marry a woman 11 years older than me. She was pregnant with my brother. She was warm. Funny. Strong. Sharp. I adored her. And when I learned my baby brother was coming, my heart broke in a way I couldn’t name. I grieved the fact that I wouldn’t grow up with him. That he might grow up without protection… like me.

So I moved to Missouri. Not for my dad. For my brother. For a chance at family. But I was 16, hormonal, and suddenly in a rural town with fewer than 50 people. Survival kicked back in.

Looking for Love, Landing in Lust

I moved back to California as a junior. My mom and I returned to our one-bedroom apartment. My old friends barely recognized me. But this time, I had a car. That made me valuable. It bought me time, company, distraction. We smoked. We drank. I sought out boys. Looking for love… but landing in lust. Obsession, definitely.

There was the boy I met in Hawaii. I wanted that to be love. I clung to it. But I never felt love from him. His words were hollow. Then came my daughter’s father. He told me he loved me right away. “You are mine,” he said. So I stayed. But love? That’s not what it was.

It wasn’t until I saw my daughter’s face that I finally knew what love could feel like. True. Unconditional. No strings. No performance.

And then she was gone. They switched her in the hospital. Forty-five minutes of not knowing where she was. Forty-five minutes that rearranged my soul. Love has always come with a gut punch.

The Years That Followed

When my other two children were born, my heart exploded open again. All I wanted was to be with them. To be their protector. Their shelter. Their father was cheating. Drunk. Manipulative. Emotionally violent. But I stayed too long because leaving meant I’d have to share my heart, my innocent children.

But I did leave — more so, I told him not to come home. And yes, then I did have to share my loves. With him. And with the girl he cheated on me with, who tried to erase me. One time he had the audacity to tell me, “How do you think she feels? She loves me so much and just wants to be the mother of my children?” He really wanted me to empathize with her situation as they both did everything in their power to take my power away.

It was the worst time of my life.

My Adult YMCA

It was during this season — early in the separation — that I found my adult YMCA. Not a building. Not an activity. A person.

He was brilliant. Deep. Emotionally fluent in ways I’d never seen. He didn’t flinch at any of my story. He peeled back my armor like he knew what he was doing. Like he wanted to see.

But he came with a warning: my reality was too much for him long term. My trauma too heavy. “We were right… for right now.” That’s what he said. It tasted like abandonment. But it was the most delicious thing I’d ever been offered.

I spent 10 years trying to be okay with not being chosen by the one I chose to let in. I tried dating. Distracting. Proving. Pretending. And eventually, right now became then. The walls around my heart caught fire and set my entire world ablaze.

When the smoke cleared, I stood in the middle of the ashes of a castle I built out of rubble. I was all pain and grit.

— AudraHealing out loud, so you don't have to heal in silence.