Adriel Circle

​ Sometimes we spend so much time looking at ourselves through everything we’ve survived that we forget there is a whole person underneath it all. You are more than what happened to you. You are still becoming. And I hope you get to experience the version of your life where you don’t have to keep surviving, where you get to simply live, create, love, travel, laugh, and be free. ❤️ And for what it’s worth, I hope that when you eventually look back at this chapter, you say: “I made it out. And I became someone I was proud to be.” 🫶🏽

​ There is a particular kind of grief that comes with losing an abusive mother. It is not simple. You are not only grieving the person who died. You are grieving the mother you needed but never had. You are grieving the childhood you deserved. You are grieving the safety, tenderness, protection, and unconditional love that should have been yours. And sometimes, you are grieving while carrying anger. For a long time, I thought closure would come from understanding why she treated me the way she did. Maybe if I understood her pain, her childhood, her struggles, or the things that happened to her, I would finally understand why she hurt me. But healing taught me something different. Understanding someone does not erase what they did to you. My mother was still my mother. She was also someone who caused me pain. Both truths can exist at the same time. I don’t have to rewrite my childhood because she is no longer here. I don’t have to turn her into a perfect mother simply ...

​ For a long time, I thought being strong was simply who I was. People described me as independent, ambitious, resilient, difficult to break. I learned to carry myself, solve my own problems, protect my heart, and keep moving even when I was hurting. But lately, I have been asking myself a difficult question: How much of my strength was actually survival? Sometimes, the woman people admire is the woman who learned very early that she could not afford to fall apart. I became strong because I had to. I learned to depend on myself because depending on others sometimes came with disappointment, humiliation, betrayal, or pain. I learned to keep certain parts of myself private because I discovered that not everyone who wanted to know me wanted the best for me. I learned to read people. I learned to protect myself. I learned to leave. I learned not to expect too much. And somewhere along the way, I became very good at surviving. But surviving and living are not the same thing. I ...