Survival Series: Part One
The Moment You Realize You Haven’t Been Living
It happened on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon — the kind where the sky can’t decide if it wants to rain or just stay moody. I was standing at my kitchen counter, eating soup straight from the bowl like a woman who’d forgotten she owns utensils.
I wasn’t sad.
I wasn’t overwhelmed.
I wasn’t even thinking anything dramatic.
I was just… blank.
Halfway through the bowl, I pulled the spoon out of my mouth and thought,
Huh. I don’t taste a thing.
That was the moment.
That tiny, ridiculous moment with the spoon.
I felt something familiar slide across my chest — that old, low hum that says, “Keep going. Keep pushing. Don’t fall apart.”
And I realized I’d slipped back into survival mode without even noticing.
Not the loud survival mode — the kind where everything is on fire.
The quiet kind.
The one with the flat days and the going-through-the-motions and the faint sense that life is happening around you, not with you.
I leaned back against the counter and looked at my kitchen like I was seeing it from underwater.
The light was beautiful, slanting across the table like a little blessing I hadn’t earned.
But I didn’t feel it.
I didn’t feel anything.
And that was the tell.
It hit me then, soft but clear:
Oh. I’ve gone numb again.
Survival mode always sneaks in like that — through the tiny cracks.
When you stop noticing the warm mug in your hands.
When you stop humming to yourself.
When you stop lifting your face toward the sun because the sun feels like too much effort.
Nobody teaches us to look for that.
We just push through it, proud of how strong we are.
But here’s what I’ve learned living this long, wild life of mine:
The moment you notice you’re in survival mode is the moment you’re already stepping out of it.
Awareness is the first crack in the armor.
I didn’t fix anything that day.
I didn’t make a list.
I didn’t vow to overhaul my life.
I just stood there, bowl in hand, and whispered to myself,
Honey… you’re allowed to feel alive again.
And something softened.
Barely, but enough.
Tomorrow, I’ll tell you the tiny two-minute thing I do when this happens — the thing that pulls me back into the land of the living every single time.
But for today, just this:
Notice the flatness.
Notice the part of you that wants more.
That’s where the revival begins.
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