The Loneliness of Protecting Your Peace

By Marissa Rotolo

Александра Ефимова / @alexie201923 via Pinterest 

Covered in sheets and blankets, I lay next to only my Theraflu and the Pandora’s box that is my phone. A sick day from school used to feel like winning the lottery. I prayed for them. Now it feels like a comedown of burning the candle at both ends, the disappointment of not meeting the impossible expectations I had set for myself. 

This is what the hangover of protecting my peace looks like. A congested, body aching reminder that wanting a sustainable life doesn’t mean I have to build it in unsustainable ways.

A few months ago, for better or for worse, my life looked entirely different. A thought that comes across my desk at least five times a day.  So much is out of my control — and I’ve finally stopped trying to play tug-of-war with it. I did however; make a conscious decision to seize all of the things I do have sovereignty over. The ways I fuel my body, my health, the type of media I consume, the people I call home, my faith, even my hair. 

There is a unique grief that comes with building the life you want for yourself. You mourn the old one so profoundly, but live in hope for what’s to come. It’s a bittersweet symphony of notes that are instrumental in the person you hope to become. And then, one day, you wake up and realize: I think I’m lonely.

How is it possible to do everything “right” and feel so alone?

Because when you shed a life, you shed everything. Your new life costs your old one. Relationships change, you lose the innocence of ‘not knowing,’ you live intentionally instead of blissfully unaware, and that can feel so intimidating. 

Sometimes you have to lose the version of you that was surviving to make room for the one who will thrive.

Balance is a lesson I’m still very much studying — evidenced by the fact that I’ve worked myself sick.  I am also still learning how to accept shedding all the components of my old life. It was a pretty good one, it just doesn’t serve me anymore.