Last night I found a wound under my right breast. It smelled foul, and for a moment, time stopped. My mind spiraled fast—faster than I could catch up with it. I thought about sickness. I thought about death. I thought about my daughter, Gracie, and how she would grow up without her mother. I imagined her grieving. I imagined my dad flying my body back home, trying to explain it all to her.
All this… in just a few minutes.
But strangely, I was laughing as I explained it. Smiling. Not because I wasn’t afraid—but maybe because the fear was too heavy to show. My body chose laughter because that’s what it could manage.
It’s strange how we respond to fear. Sometimes we don’t scream or cry. Sometimes we smile and make jokes while our insides feel like they’re being shredded. That’s what last night was.
I realised how quickly my brain defaults to catastrophe. How my deepest fear—leaving my child motherless—is always hovering close. And that fear is tied to my own loss. Gracie’s pain, in my mind, mirrors the pain I once felt. It terrifies me.
But I’m still here.
The wound was not a death sentence. It was a reminder—of how trauma lingers, how fear shapes our thoughts, and how the body tries to protect us even when we don’t understand it.
I’m learning not to judge my reactions. I’m learning that laughter doesn’t mean denial—it might just be survival. And I’m reminding myself gently that not every shadow means the world is ending.
Some nights shake us. Last night was one of them.
But I’m still here. And for now, that is enough.