Hope Anyway by Leeana TankersleyChikamu

Day Two

Finding What You Never Lost

The week I received the news that my marriage would be ending, I was confused, shocked, desperate to fix something I couldn’t fix. 

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked out loud. 

Here is what I heard: Leeana, you are not losing your person. You are finding your person. And your person is you. 

That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, I wanted to yell back. Of course I’m losing my person. Of course I’m losing everything. My house. My future. My financial security. My children’s trauma-free childhood I have been desperately trying to create. What are you not getting about this? This is death. 

Deep down—and this does not mean I liked it—I knew the voice speaking to me was telling me the truest truth I had ever been told. Losing often leads to finding, and usually we find what we could never lose in the first place. 

Some of us have what I call identity dysmorphia. We can’t feel our own strength, hear our own voice, trust our own knowing, or see our own gifts. But know this: Whatever you are experiencing right now, your capacity for resilience eclipses your capacity for ruin. 

This is not the end of the story. Not by a long shot.

Time spent in darkness expands us. Because in the stillness, something is taking root. And the new thing that is being born in you and, therefore, being born into the world, is happening entirely out of love. 

Love says, “I know your deepest longings, and I will use this darkness to bring you closer to everything you really want.” Love says, “I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.” Love shines brightest in the darkness. 

Of course you’re scared. Of course you’re weary. Of course you’re unclear about what it is you need to do in this darkness. 

Incubator. Cocoon. Ground. Womb. What happens in these places? Tiny shoots, new cells, expansion, becoming, wings. What does the thing in the darkness do? Waits. Stays still. Welcomes the becoming. Pays attention. Notices invitations. Finally emerges. 

God, what would “staying still” in this loss look like for me right now?