Healing

Piper had experienced more loss than most she knew or met. She’d been unable to grieve one death before another happened. People didn’t understand her perspective. She kept to herself after a while. She’d observed how others responded to talking about death and grieving. Most thought there was a time limit on grieving the loss of a loved one. The reality was far from that. There’s no time limit on it. She knew better than anyone. Grief is love one cannot give to the person that died. Words of encouragement to others who’d lost someone left them seeing grief differently. It was a career path shed considered. To become a Grief Counselor in some way was something she’d considered. Writing about it did the same thing. She’d wanted to speak out about it far more. To normalize and destigmatize it. She began doing that far more over time. 

She left after a fight with her dad Charlie. A conversation with a friend she ran into with him standing there with them revealed that she was Lesbian. She’d not been open about it to him. She’d no intention of ever telling him. She knew he wasn’t accepting. She wasn’t expecting the reaction he had though. She shamed him for it. That her mother would’ve been ashamed of him for not loving her as she is. That Delilah would’ve divorced him if she were alive. She left knowing what would happen afterward. She didn’t care. She told the truth when others asked. It alienated him as a result. People told him they no longer trusted him. He was shamed by nearly everyone after the truth came out. The few that were on his side were just as close minded. That anyone LGBTQ+ was going through a phase or Mentally Ill. Or both. It further confirmed she’d made the right decision. 

She traveled around the U.S for the next year. He’d given her a significant amount of money and told her to get out. Only for her to tell him she was leaving anyway. A job opportunity had come her way. A remote job writing short stories. She’d gone to Miami Beach for a month. She began traveling around after that. She wanted to get out of Florida. Preferably for good. Her heart seemed to have been left behind in Miami Beach. She’d fallen in love with the area. She wanted to settle down there. It left her conflicted. To travel around the country had been on her bucket list the majority of her life. She’d made the decision to wait until the end of roaming around the country.
 
She’d used Insight Therapy the entire time. To look back on the life she had. To reflect on the fight with Charlie. To reflect on going no contact with nearly everyone she’d grown up around. She saw life as well as her past differently. Each place she visited brought a different perspective. Random conversations with others left her thinking while in her hotel room. Sharing her life changed them. She’d been openly Lesbian the entire time. She reflected on everything over the last few months. She  finally had a job she loved. She was able to roam around the country. She wasn’t tied down by the trauma that had been inflicted on her. She was no longer worried about what others thought about her. She was living her life her way. Happily. She’d found the peace she’d been searching for. 

Her decision to settle in Miami Beach was the best decision for her. The longing she had for the area hadn’t been something she could shake. She’d fallen in love with the area. Her soul recognized the peace she had there. She’d strategically saved money while traveling the country. She’d spent money on the bare essentials and nothing more while traveling. It left her with nearly a year's worth of rent in Miami Beach. It was a decision she didn’t think twice about after it became her final decision. The apartment she moved into that had a beach view. A spacious one bedroom apartment near Ocean Ave. She’d cried her first night in the apartment. She finally had the life she dreamed of.