🌿 One Piece at a Time:
How Standing Up for Myself Helped Me Start Letting Go of the Past
This is a story about space, silence, and survival — and what happens when a widow who has spent years making herself small finally decides to reclaim herself.
I’ve lived through the kind of grief that comes from losing people I’ve loved long before they died — including my husband, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law… and my father.
But I’ve also struggled with grief over losing myself — to caretaking, to shame, to shrinking, and years of silence.
That’s why this story matters.
Because whether you’ve lost your loved one to death...
Or lost pieces of yourself while trying to survive...
You’ll understand the ache of what I’m about to share.
It’s the story of a broken closet. A woman reclaiming space.
And how healing begins — not all at once, but one piece at a time.
🚪 The Closet That Held Too Much
For over a year, the pieces of a broken closet that once belonged to my sister-in-law, Lourdes, sat in the back room of my mother-in-law’s apartment — the home where we had all lived together through their final years.
I had disassembled Lourdes’ closet shortly after she passed away.
It saddened me to see her struggling every day to open the broken closet door. She had spent the last nearly 20 years caring for her ailing mother and husband, giving them both the dignity of dying with grace and comfort, always putting their needs ahead of hers.
After Lourdes died, it felt disrespectful to keep the closet standing in its broken state — like I was keeping her pain frozen in time.
When I finally took it apart, I felt proud. Like I was honoring both her space and mine.
Making room for us both to move forward, in some small way.
🎥 That moment — caught on this quiet live video over a year ago — was filled with sadness, reflection, and the beginning of letting go.
🔧 The Fear of Reclaiming
After my parents divorced, growing up in an abusive home dominated by my stepfather, I had been conditioned to expect punishment for everything — for speaking up, for taking up space, for simply existing.
That fear lived in my body for years.
And in that moment over a year ago — standing over the broken closet pieces — it rose again.
“Don’t do it. You’ll get in trouble. You’ll be punished.”
Some part of me still feared retaliation — even just for tossing the broken wood into the building’s trash area.
That’s what trauma does. It defies logic.
It teaches us to be afraid of simple things.
🏠 The House That Wasn’t a Home
For a long time, my son and I lived in the shadows of this apartment.
Even though it’s a large space, most of it was dedicated to caregiving.
Our belongings were packed in suitcases under a table — a 4x4 corner we called our “closet.”
The refrigerator, the back room, everything — had rules, tension, and unspoken expectations.
Lourdes didn’t like my vegan food.
She threatened to throw it away often.
She made it clear, with words and actions:
“You do not belong here. Your food, your needs, your presence — are a problem.”
Terrified by her rage, I learned to shrink.
To disappear.
To stay small.
🧵 A Clothesline of Grief
Even now sometimes, I feel nauseous when I look into the back room.
There was a clothesline strung across it, filled with soiled sheets and garments from Mami and Julio’s final days. Lourdes decided that all clothes and sheets needed to be rinsed before being placed in her washing machine.
There was always more laundry. More cleanup. More caregiving.
That clothesline became a symbol — not just of love and labor — but of unrelenting grief, silence, and self-abandonment.
🌍 A Sherpa of Survival
To ease tension, Lourdes wanted us out of the house during the day.
So every morning, I packed up my life and walked to the library: food, water, laptop, everything.
Every night, I carried it back up five flights of stairs.
Even when I had no money for bus fare, I walked — shivering, exhausted.
I felt like a sherpa carrying the invisible weight of:
“You are not safe. You are not welcome. You must not take up space.”
🎓 Losing Work, Gaining Clarity
That first year, I lost 12 jobs.
I couldn’t function in the chaos.
And eventually, I gave up trying to perform and simply offered to help care for the family.
But the truth is, the collapse gave birth to clarity.
I began saying no to being underpaid.
I started reclaiming my value.
I even taught live workshops in the evenings — because even in grief, my voice still had value.
🍽️ Always Last
We weren’t allowed to eat until Lourdes and the others had eaten first.
Even garbage had to wait until after midnight.
Her rules ruled everything.
It became clear:
“Your needs come last. You must endure discomfort in silence.”
🫃 Compassion for the Cycle
Lourdes wasn’t cruel.
She was exhausted — trapped in the same trauma cycle.
Her rigidity and control were forms of survival.
And so, as I reclaim my space today, I do it not in anger — but in compassion.
For her. For me. For every woman who’s ever been taught to disappear.
🔄 One Piece at a Time
Back in January, I initiated the court process to stand up for my rights — for my home, my voice, my family.
And several weeks ago, I did something simple but powerful:
🪵 I carried two broken pieces of Lourdes’ closet out of the back room and to the front door.
My son helped me. Within a few days all the pieces were gone.
🎥 That act of starting to clear the closet was captured in a short video — along with a quiet tour of the space as it was then. It’s still a work in progress as I continue to clear the room, bit by bit.
In the video above that’s on my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@thejuicywoman, you’ll see where the closet once stood.
Where our belongings were hidden.
Where silence once lived.
It’s not a finished story.
But it’s a reclaimed one.
💖 The Real Truth
I’ve had a lot of time to think about this.
For years, I stood behind others, hoping they’d make me happy.
Hoping they’d keep me safe.
But relying on others always kept me in uncertainty.
I gave up control of my life.
And while I can’t change the past, I can say this now:
I choose to reclaim my space.
I choose to stand in front.
Not all at once.
Not perfectly.
But one piece at a time.
❤️🩹 The Invitation to Transform Your Pain
If you’re grieving the loss of a partner — someone you loved and shared a life with — I want to offer you more than comfort.
The deeper truth is:
You can rebuild.
Not just your routine or your schedule.
But your sense of self.
Because as painful as this loss has been… it’s also an opening.
It’s possible that your loss has taught you the painful lesson that life is precious and to embrace gratitude for being alive.
Here’s an invitation to come home to yourself, piece by piece.
To create a new meaning for your life — not around your pain, but upon a foundation of self-love - to see yourself as the powerful woman you have become.
Through your loss your life has been irrevocably changed. Perhaps in grief your body has suffered and your health has deteriorated. You lost your strength, your resilience, maybe even your reason for living.
But you are allowed to start over and first that means learning to care about yourself.
You are allowed to be soft and kind to yourself.
You are allowed to want more for yourself.
This isn’t about forgetting what you had and the life you shared.
It’s about honoring who you are becoming and loving your way to wellness — one breath, one step, one piece and a single bite at a time.
💌 Subscribe to Lovin’ the Skin You’re In for more stories, mirror wisdom, and self-love healing after loss.
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