Every Day Waiting for Your Life to Blow Up

There’s a moment—right after you open your eyes in the morning—that doesn’t feel like waking up. It feels like surfacing from a dream into a gasping panic. Like you’ve missed something. Like a siren was going off and only your soul heard it.

For a lot of people, this isn’t just anxiety—it’s muscle memory. It’s not just nerves. It’s lived experience. You pick up your phone like it’s a live grenade, cracking one eye open just enough to brace for the blast: a text that changes everything, a missed call that signals loss, a subject line with your name and a blade hidden inside.

That kind of fear doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s learned. Conditioned. Because one day, it did happen.

Eight years ago, it happened to me.

My life flipped. Not the fun kind of “new chapter” flip—the violent, everything-you-knew-is-gone kind. The kind that turns your life on its side, then belly-up. I lost people. I lost things I built. I lost trust in my ability to predict the next five minutes. And somewhere in all of that, I lost the version of myself I used to be.

I’ve rebuilt. Life has moved on. Good things have happened. And yet, I still think about it every day. That’s the thing with trauma—it scars like a burn. Not always visible, but always traceable. A line drawn through every moment that follows, a thread you can feel tugging in the background of your best days.

If this feels familiar, I want you to know: you’re not alone.

Many of us have that one moment—a single event that drew a permanent line between “before” and “after.” It makes you older overnight. Changes how you walk into rooms. How you answer the phone. How you love.

And the cost of carrying that weight isn’t just anxiety. The true cost is presence. It’s all the beautiful things around you that you no longer fully experience because your mind is somewhere else, replaying what went wrong, or preparing for the next time it might.

But here’s something I’ve learned, and keep learning: you cannot fully live if you’re stuck inside an old version of yourself. The one who made the mistake. Or got hurt. Or broke something important. That version of you deserves your forgiveness.

You deserve your own forgiveness.

Self-forgiveness isn’t indulgent—it’s necessary. Because you can’t rewrite the past. You can’t “Eternal Sunshine” your brain and delete the hardest day of your life. But you can change the narrative it holds over you.

You can say to yourself, out loud, “I forgive you.”

You can say, “That shame—that’s not serving me anymore. That’s not who I am now.”

You may not believe it the first time. But your brain will catch up. It just takes repetition. Like building muscle, but for your soul. Hard at first, but easier with practice.

And if the work feels too hard right now—that’s okay. That’s why we need others. Friends, mentors, therapy, spiritual practice, support groups, or hell, even a stranger on the internet who says, “I see you. I’ve been there too.” There’s no single right way, but the right direction is always toward grace.

For me, journaling helps. Think of it like being your own detective. Record the clues. Build the case. Ask, “What am I still punishing myself for?” The answer might surprise you. The clarity will help you heal.

And when the voice creeps in—the one that says, “I messed up back then, so I’ll mess up now,” or “I can’t change,” remember this:

You messed up in the past. So every time you get it right now, it means even more.

That’s not failure. That’s growth. That’s redemption. That’s you, standing in the fire and walking out stronger.

Keep going. Be patient. Be kind to yourself. You are not your worst moment—you are the person who lived through it.

And you’re still here.

So forgive yourself.

You deserve that.

Eventually, you’ll wake up and not have a panic breath every time you reach for your phone.