At first, everything collapsed.
That’s the only honest way to say it.
The beginning didn’t feel like a crack or a shift. It felt like total structural failure. Nothing held. Nothing made sense. There was no ground to stand on, only the shock of realizing it was gone.
It took time before I could look around and see that not everything had disappeared. Time before I noticed that some parts of life were still standing, even if they were altered. Time before I understood that what remained wasn’t intact, but it wasn’t rubble either.
Later, much later, I realized this:
Life didn’t shatter completely.
It fractured.
From the outside, things still looked intact. Days continued. Tasks got done. Conversations happened. But underneath all of it, the ground had shifted. Every step required attention in a way it never had before.
This is what it’s like to live on a fracture line.
You can function, but you’re always adjusting. You learn where to place your weight. You sense where the ground feels thin. You become aware of how much energy it takes to stay upright.
People don’t always see this part. They see someone who is “doing okay.” Someone who shows up. Someone who keeps going. What they don’t see is the constant internal recalibration, the quiet calculations, the way stability has become conditional.
Nothing is effortless anymore.
Living this way changes how you move through the world.
You stop assuming tomorrow will feel like today.
You stop spending energy on things that don’t matter.
You become more selective with your time, your words, your expectations.
Not because you’re wiser.
Because you have to be.
There are days when the ground feels steady enough to forget. And then there are days when everything reminds you where the fault line runs. A sound. A memory. A moment you didn’t anticipate.
On those days, you learn to pause. You learn to wait until your footing returns.
Over time, you do learn the terrain. Not enough to forget it’s there, but enough to move with less fear. You recognize the unstable places. You know when to slow down. You understand which days will require more care.
It doesn’t mean the fracture disappears. It means you stop expecting solid ground where it doesn’t exist.
I wrote more about what stability means now in What Stability Means Now.
I didn’t know I could live like this.
But I am.
I can stand.
I can walk.
That counts.
The path didn’t end.
It changed.
