The Road That Still Breaks My Heart

There’s a road I used to turn down that felt like stepping through a portal, like the air shifted as I crossed the threshold into something softer, safer, almost sacred. I lived at the end of that road for five years, and even now, years later, I’m still grieving the loss of it like I lost a person. Because maybe I did.

I lost the version of myself I became in that house.

That place wasn’t just where I lived. It was where I finally exhaled. Where I found rhythm and comfort and hope again. The walls weren’t just shelter. They were sanctuary. And when we left, it wasn’t just a move. It was a tearing. A dislocation. A grief I’ve never quite been able to outrun.

It’s been almost five years since we left, which is almost the same amount of time we lived there. Somehow, that symmetry makes the ache sharper. Like I’m standing on either side of a mirror, looking at a version of myself I can’t reach anymore.

I still cry when I think about it.
I still tear up when I get too close.
I still find myself dreaming about it, vivid, aching dreams where we’re allowed to go back. Where we’re living there again, like nothing ever changed. And I wake up heartbroken all over again.

Some people think of grief as something reserved for death, but I know better. I’ve learned that there’s such a thing as living grief, the kind that haunts you quietly, the kind that follows you into your sleep, the kind that doesn’t have a funeral but still deserves to be mourned.

I don’t know how to stop wanting it back.
And maybe I don’t need to. Maybe that place will always be a soul marker, a lighthouse I can’t reach but still look for on dark nights.

Sometimes, I wonder if peace like that ever comes back.
Not in the same form, but in pieces. In fragments.
In new light through new windows. In quiet mornings where my heart doesn’t feel so bruised.

But for now, I carry it.
I carry her, the woman I was in that house.
The woman who finally felt like she had made it home.
And every time the sky turns that color, the one that feels like a Zach Bryan song, I let myself miss it.

Because what we had there, that was home.

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There’s a reel on my Instagram that goes with this post. I put it together with a song that gets me every time. You can watch it here.

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To those of you that follow me everywhere – thank you for putting up with this for a few days in a row. I don’t know that I’m through it yet, but I do know there is catharsis in posting.

xoxo
-S