Safe Space

My blog has always been the one place (other than therapy ha) where I don’t feel like I have to censor what I say.

It’s where I can be completely myself.

Where I can say all my feels, even the ones that sound too heavy or too honest out loud.

A therapist I had in 7th grade once told me that writing is a great coping skill, and I’ve held on to that ever since.

It’s more than coping now, though, it’s a way of processing. 

It’s the space where I make sense of the world when nothing else does.

There are so many things I want to say right now, and this is the only place that feels safe enough to say them.

Not because I don’t trust people. But because sometimes, the weight of my thoughts feels like too much for conversation.

Writing gives me permission to let it all out without worrying how it lands. Without worrying who reads it.  Without worry what people think. Without Judgement and cruelty

Here, I can tell the truth.

Here, I can remember the hard things and the holy things.

Here, I can be me an unfiltered hot mess just trying to heal, learn, and try again.

Maybe that’s the beauty of a safe space: it’s not always quiet, or tidy, or understood.

Sometimes it’s just the place where you finally stop editing yourself long enough to breathe.

What triggered this post was A few weeks ago, during a St. Jude research study about how Parents of children with cancer are seen and treated, I was asked a question that caught me completely off guard:

“Has anyone treated you differently since your child’s diagnosis?”

It should’ve been simple to answer, yes or no.

But instead, it sat heavy in my chest. And is still sitting heavy in my chest. 

Because the truth is… yes. Absolutely yes.

And not always in the ways people might think.

Some people disappeared. Some grew quiet.

Some tiptoed around my pain, afraid to say the wrong thing.

And some showed up so fiercely it felt like God sent them Himself.

But there were also the ones who stayed the friends and family who didn’t leave, but who somehow changed.

Their words carried a new carefulness.

Their hugs felt shorter, their eyes lingered longer, like they weren’t sure which version of me they’d get that day.

They loved me, I know they did, but the air between us just wasn’t the same anymore.

The relationship changed. 

Somewhere along the way, I think I became a little misunderstood.

My honesty started to sound like bitterness.

My boundaries started to look like attitude.

My story because obnoxious and over told.  And somewhere in the mix of grief and exhaustion, I think a few people decided I was the problem. 

They decided I wasn’t worth understanding anymore. 

It’s strange, isn’t it? How the very season that shows you who your people are also shows you who you make uncomfortable.

The truth is, I’m not the same person I was before all of this and sometimes, that alone is enough to make others pull back.

I never meant to change, I had to change. 

But it wasn’t everyone.

The true friends and family the ones who love me for me no matter what stayed.

They saw past the hard days and the new versions of me and continue to love me anyway.

They didn’t need me to be who I used to be.

They just met me right where I was, right where I am and stayed there.

And that kind of love? That’s holy ground.

That question from the study pulled at something I hadn’t said out loud, that grief doesn’t just change you, it changes your circles.

It redraws the lines of who feels safe.

The people you thought would always be there sometimes don’t know how to stand beside the version of you that’s been through fire.

And maybe that’s why I write.

Because here in this space I can say all of that without apology and without expectation.

Here, I can talk about the loneliness that comes after the roller coaster stops. 

Here, I can admit that healing is quieter than anyone warns you it will be.

Here, I can remember that God never needed me to be understood. 

He just needed me to be honest.

Writing has become the bridge between my heart and the world

the one place where I can still meet people where I am, even if they never show up in person.

The place I feel like I am helping people the most. 

And somehow, in this little corner of words and faith, I’ve realized something:

God meets me here too.

Every time I show up with my whole hot mess and unspoken thoughts, He’s already waiting ready to remind me that I’m still seen, still safe, and still held. 

To remind me that he already knows and has a plan. 

Because maybe this is what Psalm 62:8 really means:

“Pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge.”

This space my words, my tears, my truths they’ve always been safe, not because they’re hidden, but because they’re held.

By Him. 

Always by Him.