Part 2 – The Unravelling: Escape Velocity

This post is part of From Unravelling to Weaving: My Journey to Recollections Within, a foundational five-part series following my personal path to this work. Each chapter reflects on the losses, changes, and realizations that shaped the archive and the vision behind it.

A Shattering Silence

In Part 1, I shared how the name Recollections Within first arrived. But the deeper shift that set this journey in motion came much earlier, through loss. It began with a silence that broke my life open and changed its direction for good.

On a beautiful, warm night in the late spring of 2015, my Mum died.

She died in her own home, on her own terms. My sister and I, our aunt, and her best friend formed a circle around her, as women have done since time began. We held her, body and spirit, and ushered her from this world to whatever comes next.

She struggled for many hours to let go. The sounds of those hours haunted me every time I closed my eyes for a full year after she left. It was the most surreal thing I’ve ever experienced. It’s been ten years now, without her, and sometimes I still hear it.

Her death was stunningly similar to the process we go through when we give birth: the denial and resistance, the sense of I don’t know if I can do this. I’m afraid to do this. The surging of power, and finally… the surrender. The release.

I whispered “Bye-bye, Mummy” into her ear and watched as she finally left her body.

My soul shattered.

Ruth: A Friend and a Force

She was, and remains, a monumental presence in my life, a woman of incredible strength, warmth, and unwavering support. Her name was Ruth, which quite literally means friend. This woman lived the very definition of gratitude, and she loved everyone.

She gave me all the good things that I am. She permeates my thoughts. I see her every day in my own hands and I hear her voice in my own. She is my conscience and my joy in all the little gifts life has to give.

Grief, in its rawest, most visceral form, strips away all pretense. It forces us to confront what truly matters, to face the stark realities of existence.

For me, that confrontation brought an undeniable, searing truth: there’s no more time to waste. Life is too precious, too fleeting, to live by default.

The Breaking Point

I felt an unrelenting push, motherly in itself, almost demanding that I start living my life with purpose. If not then, when?

I felt the sickening sense that if I didn’t change my own situation, I would live the rest of my days feeling insignificant and invisible.

Up until then, I had lived small. I lingered in quiet dissatisfaction, wanting more, yet refusing, or unable, to do the work necessary to change it. I often felt unheard, trapped in a narrative I had written long ago as a naïve child who believed that love alone was enough to make happiness last.

I had lived as though my life would change only if something outside me changed first. Losing my Mum shattered that illusion. It became painfully clear that if my story was going to change, I would have to change it.

Facing the Fear

This realization, while profoundly liberating, was also terrifying. The fear of failure had long been an insidious companion, a heavy anchor keeping me tethered to a life that no longer served anyone.

It’s astonishing how long that fear can keep you in a situation, even when you know, deep down, it’s empty, broken, and hurting the very people it was intended to nurture.

The thought of stepping into the unknown, of dismantling what was familiar, even if it was deeply unsatisfying, felt like staring into an abyss.

But perhaps the greatest fear of all, especially for a lifelong people-pleaser like me, was realizing that to make these changes, I would have to become the villain in some people’s stories.

Accepting that my choices might not be universally understood or approved of (that prioritizing my own well-being might inadvertently cause discomfort or even devastation to others) was an incredibly intense and difficult thing to accept.

The Unravelling

The death of my Mum marked the beginning of an unravelling. Not of destruction, but of liberation. I started to see the world, and my place in it, with new eyes.

I began to understand what I truly deserved in life and in relationships.

It was a slow, often painful process of finding my voice, reclaiming my autonomy, and stepping onto a path I had long avoided. Each step felt like a deliberate act of defiance of my previous self, a conscious choice to honour what grief had made impossible to ignore.

This awakening wasn’t just about escaping what was no longer serving me. It was about discovering what fueled my soul, what brought me genuine joy and meaning. It was about realizing that my own happiness was not a luxury, but a necessity, and that living authentically was the only way forward for me.

The threads of my old life began to fray, making space for new, stronger ones to be woven.

This profound internal shift, ignited by loss and fueled by a newfound courage, became the catalyst for everything that followed.

In part 3 of this series, I write about the unexpected connections and changes that followed, and how, even in the middle of upheaval, a different life began to take shape.

To start from the beginning, visit Part 1 – A Whisper That Meant Everything

Photo Credit: JC Knipe