At the start of the year, I sat down to make a vision board.

A moment to think about where life was headed and what I wanted this year to look like.

I never finished it. Because then she died.

She had been in hospice, so it wasn’t a surprise. We had already been living inside the long goodbye. Dementia had been slowly taking pieces of her for years. In many ways, I thought I had already done a lot of the grieving. 

But losing someone for real is different than losing them in pieces.

Now I find myself looking at that unfinished vision board wondering What’s the point of any of this?

My internal world feels frozen but the outside world keeps moving.

My husband still deployed.
My kids still need breakfast and homework help.
My business still needs emails answered and orders packed.

So I show up. I check the boxes.

But lately I’ve been living in a strange middle space.

Not falling apart.
Not fully here either.

Internally, it feels like walking through fog.

Some days feel steady and strong. Other days everything feels heavy again.

And then the questions start.

How do I move forward? How do I build something meaningful when a part of me feels paused? Is the path I’ve been walking even the one I still want?

I don’t have the answers yet.

If you’re reading this and you’re somewhere in your own grief journey, maybe you know this feeling. 

The strange combination of functioning and heartbreak.
The quiet question of what matters now.

It’s been two months.

You might have noticed I haven’t been showing up here as consistently as I normally would. Grief has a way of slowing everything down.

Right now I don’t have a clear vision of what comes next. But I do know that I’m still here. Still building. Still showing up where I can.

Maybe the vision board will come together slowly as the fog clears.

Until then, I’ll keep taking the next step.