Survival Is Not the Destination

This week I wrote a chapter in the Nora Beth Story that explores what happens when loss becomes physical.

When thinking feels like movement, but you go nowhere. Your body stays pinned to the ground.

There are seasons when the mind works tirelessly; convinced that understanding will be the way out. That it will provide relief, even escape.

You think, if I can just trace it back far enough,

name it clearly enough,

hold it still in my mind long enough…

But some losses don’t release us from its pain through clarity.

Often it intensifies it.
It settles deep into the body.
It presses into the chest.
It slows time and quiets hunger and turns thought into weight.

In those moments, thinking feels like movement; but it isn’t.
It’s survival.

Survival is what keeps us alive long enough for something else to become possible.

Healing, wholeness, connection, meaning…those come after survival has done its job.

Sometimes the mind reaches for understanding not because it heals,
but because it feels safer than letting go of pain.

Understanding provides refuge for a while, but it’s not the cure.