Interrupted Momentum

Letters from May

I’ve been trying to understand something for a while now, and I think I finally found part of the answer this morning.

Built-up trauma is real, especially the kind that comes from constantly having to recover from difficult seasons over and over again.

Sometimes, you see people who are driven, resilient, and always trying their best to stay on top of their game…even when life knocks them down, they somehow find the strength to get back up and keep pushing because giving up has never really been an option for them.

Photo by Milos Lopusina on Unsplash

But what people often don’t see is how exhausting it becomes when certain circumstances, especially things like grief, set backs, rejection, ongoing health challenges, repeatedly interrupt their momentum. Not because they lack ambition, discipline, or desire to move forward, but because they are constantly being forced to pause, recover, adjust, and start again.

And after a while, that cycle does something to a person mentally and emotionally.

It creates a kind of quiet trauma; the fear of being pulled backward again just when you’re trying to move ahead. The exhaustion of always needing to rebuild. The frustration of knowing your capacity, yet being limited by circumstances beyond your control.

I think people underestimate how heavy that can be.

And what I find particularly difficult or rather annoying is having people around you who assume you simply aren’t trying hard enough. People who interpret your pauses, delays, or reduced capacity as laziness, lack of ambition, or even comfort with mediocrity.

When in reality, you are already fighting battles they cannot see.

Because sometimes, surviving certain seasons already takes a large amount of strength. Most times, waking up and trying again despite the exhaustion, pain, uncertainty, or constant interruptions is the victory.

I think one of the hardest things about invisible struggles, is that people often measure your life by visible output alone. They don’t see the recovery periods, the mental fatigue, the fear of relapsing, the constant need to recalibrate your life around your body, or the emotional weight of repeatedly falling behind your own expectations.

And after a while, you begin to grieve not just opportunities or lost time, but versions of yourself. Versions you know could have existed if life had been a little softer to you.

But even in all of that, I think there is something deeply admirable about people who continue to rise anyway. People who keep rebuilding themselves quietly. People who continue to hope despite how many times life has interrupted them.

Sigh… Anyway, I guess strength is simply refusing to completely give up on yourself, and shout out to anyone whose momentum has been constantly interrupted.

I hope life becomes way better and softer for you. And above all, I pray God orders your steps…

Sending you huge hugs. 🫂 🙂

I wanted to add a song for you but Spotify is currently playing repeated sad songs for me based on my first search “Waves-Dean Lewis”. Anyway, please leave a song for me (us) in the comments. T for Thanks.✨❤️