Written by Jennifer Lynn
Photo by Engina Kyurt
This is what it looked like when I finally chose myself. It wasn’t easy. It was everything.
The house was too quiet. Not peaceful—hollow. The kind of quiet that presses into you, echoing your every breath. I didn’t sit down, I sank. Right there on the hardwood floor, beside the sliding glass door where I used to meditate while the kids napped. That corner had once saved me—five-minute guided meditations that turned into hours, back when I was too overwhelmed to breathe on my own. I was surviving back then, barely. But at least that small space gave me permission to stop pretending.
Now, there was no couch. No toys. No laughter. Just the hum of the heater and the weight of everything I’d done. The walls, still covered in smudges from sticky fingers and toddler hands, closed in on me like they were trying to hold me accountable. Every creak whispered the same thing: You’re alone. You did this. You broke the family.
I curled tighter, like I could outrun the sound.
Earlier that day, I had packed my daughter’s overnight bag for her first night at her Dad’s new place. She stood at the door, confusion softening her face.
“Mommy, aren’t you coming?” she asked.
I smiled through the ache, “No, sweetheart. Have fun with Daddy.”
I watched the door close behind her and something in me split open.
It wasn’t just the end of a marriage; it was the end of a role I had been performing so well I’d almost believed it was real.
There was no one I could call who’d truly understand. Not tonight. Not with this kind of grief—the silent kind that sticks in your throat and drowns you from the inside. I didn’t need advice or reassurance, I needed to feel it. All of it. I needed to lie in the wreckage, in the aftershock of truth, and let it undo me.
So I crawled onto the only place that had ever held me: the floor. No blanket. No pillow. Just wood against skin and a body unraveling. My face soaked, my nose running, my chest heaving like something wild had come loose inside me. I wondered if it was possible to cry to death. If so, I was dangerously close.
And then—stillness. Not in the room. In me.
It wasn’t a voice. It was a knowing. A low, warm hum beneath the grief. Something ancient. Something mine. It said: This pain is the path. I wasn’t broken. I wasn’t selfish. I was waking up. That night, I chose myself. Not the mother. Not the wife. Me.
There was no applause. No music swelling in the background. Just a woman, wrecked and real, lying on a bare floor and finally hearing the voice she’d been silencing for years.
It’s easy to stay. That’s what no one tells you. It’s easy to keep performing the role, to keep folding the laundry and swallowing the ache and convincing yourself that being needed is the same as being loved. I had been praised for staying. For sacrificing. For making it work. I had been called strong, devoted, selfless. And for a long time, I believed those were compliments.
But my body had known. It had been aching, whispering, waiting for me to listen. That ache wasn’t weakness. It was wisdom. Every wave of anxiety. Every moment of numbness. Every time I disappeared into silence. Those weren’t malfunctions. They were signals. My body was begging me to come home.
I didn’t leave because I stopped loving him. I left because I started loving me. Some people call that selfish. I call it sacred.
That night wasn’t the end of a marriage. It was the beginning of a return—to my truth, to self-trust, to the woman I’d buried beneath performance and peacekeeping. A woman who had been told her value came from being agreeable. From holding it all together. From making it look easy. But I’m not interested in looking easy anymore. I’m interested in being free.
The grief didn’t vanish. The doubt didn’t disappear. But something steadier took their place: self-love that didn’t flinch or ask for permission. Self-love that showed up barefoot, swollen-eyed, and shaking—but still, certain. Self-love that was willing to lose everything in order to gain one thing: wholeness.
And no, it wasn’t glamorous. I didn’t wake up the next morning glowing or enlightened. I woke up sore, puffy, and raw. But I also woke up honest. Present. Awake. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t acting. This is what they don’t tell you about choosing yourself: it doesn’t feel good at first. It feels like death. Because it is. It’s the death of who you were pretending to be. It’s the burning down of the life you’d contorted yourself to fit inside. It’s the letting go of being liked, needed, praised.
But on the other side of that death is something else. Not perfection. Not peace. But truth. And truth is a homecoming.
Self-love isn’t always soft. Sometimes it looks like lying on a cold floor, breathless, listening for your soul to whisper: This matters, you matter, keep going.
So if you’re standing at the edge of your own undoing, wondering if you’ll survive it, hear this:
You are not behind.
You are not broken.
You are becoming.
Ask the question: What do I want?
And when the answer comes—maybe even on a night like mine—trust it. Even if it shakes you. Even if it costs you. Even if it breaks something open.
Because the truth is this: no one is coming to choose you.
You have to do it yourself.
And when you do, it will change everything.
About the Author:
Jennifer Lynn is a writer, mother, and nurse whose work explores the raw truth of choosing yourself—especially when the world calls it selfish. Her stories speak to women standing at the edge of reinvention, reminding them that self-love isn’t the end of anything—it’s the beginning of a whole new world. Find more of her work at breathbetweenworlds.substack.com, where she shares poetry and essays on embodiment, awakening, and self-trust.