Low Light

I’ll be standing at the counter, chopping vegetables, the house dim around me. Jason walks in, flips the switch, and suddenly the room floods with light. I always jump and say, “Let there be light,” half joking. He laughs every time. And every time I’m startled by the same realization — I didn’t even know I was standing in the dark.

I’ve always been good at functioning in low light. Cooking. Cleaning. Mothering. Surviving. You’d be amazed what you can get done without ever turning the lights on.

The thing about low light is that it doesn’t feel like darkness. It just feels normal. You adjust to it without realizing you’re adjusting. Your eyes learn how to make sense of less. You stop reaching for what you can’t quite see and start working with what’s right in front of you. After a while, you forget there’s another way to live. You stop questioning it. You don’t think, this is dim. You think, this is just how things are.

When I look back now, I can see how much of my life was lived that way. Not in crisis. Not in chaos. Functioning. Working. Showing up. Getting things done. From the outside, everything looked fine. More than fine.

I had built a life that worked. A career that looked successful. A home that looked stable. A version of myself that people could rely on. I was capable. Independent. The one who could handle things. And I did.

But my body was telling a different story. I just didn’t know how to listen to it yet.

The panic attacks. The migraines. The constant low hum of anxiety that I had learned to ignore. The heartburn I treated like an inconvenience instead of a message.

I didn’t stop. I adjusted. I swallowed antacids. I pushed through. I showed up anyway. I didn’t miss work. I didn’t cancel plans. I didn’t fall apart. From the outside, it looked like strength. From the inside, it was something else.

It’s strange to realize, looking back, how much I normalized. How many things I experienced that should have made me pause — but didn’t. Not because I was ignoring them. Because I didn’t know they were off.

Sometimes it showed up as panic attacks.

I remember walking through the grocery store one afternoon, just doing normal things. Grabbing what I needed, moving through the aisles. And then, out of nowhere, my heart started racing. Not subtle. Not gradual. Sudden. My chest tightened. My breath got shallow. That feeling like something is wrong, even though nothing around you has changed.

I remember trying to act normal. Just breathe. Don’t make a scene. You’re fine. I finished my shopping. Checked out. Walked to my car. Drove home. As if nothing had happened.

Another time, it didn’t stay contained.

It was during a particularly stressful stretch. Noah had gotten a DUI at eighteen. I had just been laid off from my job. Everything already felt like too much. I was sitting in the front room talking to Jason. He was frustrated about something — I don’t even remember what it was now.

But I remember what happened in my body.

It felt like I was being crushed. Like something heavy had dropped on top of me and I couldn’t get out from under it. Not just anxiety. Overwhelm in a way I didn’t have language for.

I put my head between my legs and told him I couldn’t deal with anything more than I already was. I don’t think he had ever seen me like that before. I hadn’t really let anyone see me like that before.

And even then, I didn’t think: something is wrong.

I thought: this is just a lot right now.

That was normal for me. Notice it. Minimize it. Keep going.

I didn’t think of it as my body trying to tell me something. I thought of it as something to manage. Something to get through. Something that needed to be quieted so I could keep functioning.

It never occurred to me that my body wasn’t the problem. That it might actually be the only part of me telling the truth.

Jason started noticing things before I did. Not in a dramatic way. Not in a way that called attention to it. Just in the way he watched me.

The way I kept going. The way I didn’t slow down. The way I moved through my life like there was no other option but to keep functioning.

He would say things sometimes — not accusing, just observing. That he was worried about me. That he didn’t think I had actually dealt with Connor’s death. That he was afraid one day it was all going to catch up to me at once. That I was going to have a nervous breakdown.

At the time, I didn’t see what he was seeing. I thought I was doing what needed to be done. Holding it together. Showing up. Being strong. I thought I was fine.

It wasn’t until I started doing my healing work that everything began to shift. And not in the way I expected.

I thought it would feel like relief. Like things getting lighter.

Instead, I was exhausted.

A kind of exhaustion I had never felt before. Not the kind you fix with sleep. Something deeper.

He would ask me why I was so tired. And the only way I knew how to explain it was this: my body was finally doing what it hadn’t been allowed to do for years. Rest.

When you live in survival mode for long enough, your nervous system adapts to it. It learns to stay activated. To stay alert. To keep going. Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline keep your body moving, focused, functional — even when you’re overwhelmed, even when you’re grieving. Especially when you’re grieving.

And for a while, it works.

Until it doesn’t.

Because the body doesn’t forget what the mind avoids.

When I finally stopped pushing through and started allowing myself to feel — really feel — everything I had been holding, my nervous system had to recalibrate. It had to learn how to come out of that constant state of activation.

And that takes energy. A lot of it.

The kind of energy that makes you feel like you’re moving through water. Like everything is heavier than it should be. Like your body is asking for something you don’t fully understand yet.

I didn’t have language for it at the time. Just the feeling. And the awareness that something in me was changing.

There wasn’t a single moment where everything changed. No big realization. Just small ones. Stacking. Quietly.

Moments where I would notice something in my body and not immediately override it. Moments where I would feel something and not dismiss it. Moments where I would catch myself pushing through and hesitate.

It didn’t feel like transformation.

It felt like noticing.

And every once in a while, there would be a moment like the kitchen.

The light flipping on. The room flooding.

And me realizing — not for the first time, but in a way that landed a little deeper each time — I didn’t even know I was standing in the dark.

I had built an entire life that worked in low light.

And I was very, very good at it.

And every once in a while, there’s still a moment like the kitchen.

The light flipping on. The room flooding.

And me realizing — again —

I didn’t even know I was standing in the dark.

But I can feel it now.

The difference between pushing through and actually being okay. The difference between functioning and being connected.

My body knows.

And for the first time in my life, I’m starting to listen.

If you want to keep walking with me, I’m sharing the rest of this journey on Threads of My Heart.

Another thread from my heart to yours