Stephanie — 38

“Some things just have to play out before you can see them.”

I didn’t think I had a story.

Or maybe it’s more accurate to say… I didn’t think I had a story that was untold.

Because I talk. A lot.

I process out loud. I’ve told pieces of my life in so many places, with so many people.

That I’m not walking around carrying something hidden in silence.

And I think that’s part of why I said yes to this.

Because at Shalom, that’s what we do.

We say things out loud. We tell the truth. We let ourselves be seen in it.

So this didn’t feel like exposure.

It felt like a continuation. 

I keep coming back to this one moment.

Seventh grade.

Watching Pride and Prejudice—the version with Colin Firth.

Something in me just… recognized something.

Not in my mind. In my body.

A kind of man who is self-contained. A little hard to read. But capable of seeing himself.

The feeling that if he struggled, he wouldn’t disappear.

Capable of change.

Not to win someone.

Not to secure love.

But because it’s the right thing to do.

To put pride and prejudice to the side and say…

I can be better.

That mattered to me.

It still does.

The truth is, I already knew something about love by then.

Just not the kind of love I was watching on the screen.

Watching Colin as Mr. Darcy solidified a type for me. 

Both physically and personality-wise.

I’ve always been drawn to that type.

A little moody. A little broody.

Something that balances my more sunny personality.

Because I’m expressive. Forward. I fill space easily.

And I’m learning that someone doesn’t have to meet me in that same way to be present.

There’s a kind of quiet, or even aloofness, that can look like distance…

but isn’t.

Sometimes it’s just a different way of being.

And I’m learning I can trust that.

That someone can take what they need without me filling it for them.

Without me moving in too quickly or taking over.

My father’s leaving wasn’t one moment.

It was like losing him over and over again.

At four.

At eight.

At thirteen.

And that last time. Something in me shifted in a way that stayed.

I remember standing there as he screamed in my face, his face red, then purple.

Telling me he hated me because of who my mother was. That he didn’t want to be in my life.

That he wouldn’t come to my wedding.

And I remember thinking…

Wow… it doesn’t change.

A strangely clear thought for a thirteen-year-old.

And then going home and carrying the grief of losing a parent who was still alive.

Over and over again.  No one really prepares you for that kind of loss.

When someone dies, there’s at least a shape to the grief.

There’s a moment people can point to and say, ” This is where it happened”.

This wasn’t like that. This was erosion. You still have a parent. You can still say their name.

But, internally, something keeps breaking. Quietly. Repeatedly. And every time, there’s this reset.

Maybe this time will be different. Sometimes it is, just enough to keep you hoping. And, then it isn’t.

I think that might be why that classroom moment mattered more than I realized. Because it wasn’t just watching a love story. I was seeing a version of something that didn’t exist in my life.

Consistency. Not perfection. Not constant ease. But someone who didn’t disappear and reappear in different forms. Someone who didn’t make you question who they were, depending on the day.

My parents’ relationship was volatile. Contentious. Their break-up even more so.

“My mother wasn’t a place of safety either.”

“I remember her often telling me, “I love you, but I don’t like you.”

And something in me registered that love didn’t necessarily mean safety.

Around that same time, I started getting sick. Chronic. Persistent.

Looking back now, it feels almost unbelievable that I moved through that period at all.

So I became my own place to land.

I learned to navigate.

To adjust.

To keep going.

For a long time, I tried to recreate that feeling in my own life.

Without knowing it, I kept choosing situations where I had to hold everything together.

Where I had to be the steady one.

Where love meant adjusting, anticipating, and managing.

Where loyalty meant staying, even when something felt off.

It took me a long time to see that.

Longer than I wish it had.

I was in a relationship for ten years.

And it reflected so much of what I had known.

He was never physically violent, but the patterns were there. 

And I was in it with him.

I projected onto him. And, he was definitely in relation to my projection of him. He met me in that. And it became its own kind of cycle.

During those years, I often felt like I was sleepwalking.

Like I couldn’t fully see what I was inside of.

And I know now, if someone had tried to tell me, I wouldn’t have been able to hear it.

You can’t force someone to see what they’re not ready to see.

Baron was there through all of it. My dog soulmate. 

I got him a couple of years before that relationship began, and he stayed with me through the entire ten years of it.

He was my constant.

Steady. Loving. Even in his aloofness.

He had his own way. His own space.

Sometimes he didn’t want to engage, and I’d just laugh, pat his head, and say, “Okay, I’ll come back later.”

We were different, and we loved each other exactly as we were.

He was my primary emotional companion for fifteen years.

Ten of those inside that relationship.

And in ways I didn’t fully understand at the time, he was helping me through it.

Going to Shalom changed something.

The first year, I went once a season.

And quickly, things began to shift.

Patterns of instability and harm started to loosen.

By the time I got there, I was already close to no contact with my mother.

But Shalom helped me metabolize what had happened.

Not just understand it, but process it.

And then there was a moment.

During my second time there.

Where something came in clearly:

You have to leave.

Not loud.

Not dramatic.

Just… true. 

But leaving didn’t happen right then.

It came later.

In a small moment.

My partner at the time asked me for a shoulder rub.

And my body immediately said no.

Things escalated and he asked “do you want to do this anymore?”

Clear. Simple.

And then a voice came in:

“Why lie?”

And everything in me understood. It didn’t feel like overthinking the question. This wasn’t really about that moment.

It was about everything. It was the beginning of something ending.

So I said no.

And I didn’t explain it.

I didn’t soften it.

I just stayed with it. And something shifted.

Within a few weeks, I had moved out. Ten years and then gone.

There was grief. And also relief. A kind of deep, physical exhale.

And, eventually, something different showed up. Not dramatic. Not overwhelming. 

Just steady. Someone who doesn’t disappear. Someone whose presence doesn’t shift depending on the day.

Someone who embodies love in a way that doesn’t need to be constantly questioned. By him or me.

Two weeks after I moved in with my current partner…Baron died.

It felt like he had walked me through that entire chapter of my life. And, then left once I was safe.

Like he had shepherded me back to myself.

What he taught me about love, loyalty, and connection still lives in me.

Now I’m with someone consistent.

And that steadiness is something I recognize in a new way.

Something I’m learning to trust.

Because it’s different from what I knew.

Sometimes, even now, when someone tells me they love me, there’s still a part of me that wants to ask:

But do you like me?

Because of what I was told as a child I sometimes crave that answer.

The difference is…

Now I like myself. I love myself.

So I can hear the answer from a more grounded place.

Looking back, that time feels like another lifetime.

And I’m actually grateful it didn’t take longer.

Because now I can see clearly.

I can feel when someone is in something they’re not ready to leave.

And I don’t rush in to fix it.

Because I know you can’t.

Some things have to play out.

Some cycles have to be completed.

If that relationship had ended earlier, before I found my no.

Before I built that core strength.

I might have just found another version of the same pattern.

And I might never have been ready to find a place like Shalom.

I needed that experience. As painful as it was.

If this story is a doorway…

What it opens into is appreciation. For what I’ve lived. For what I’ve walked through.

Because if any of this had come easily I might have taken it for granted.

And now I can love without trying to fix.

I can let things unfold.

I can trust that not everything needs to be rushed into understanding.

If I had to name the moment everything changed.

it wouldn’t be the breakup.

It wouldn’t even be Shalom.

It would be that moment I heard an inner voice I hadn’t heard before or since.

It would be the moment I didn’t lie. Yes to him but, more importantly to myself.

I know now that was the moment  I came back to myself.