Everything at Once

 I don’t even know where to start. Everything’s been a blur lately — and somehow, I’m both numb and feeling everything at once.

This year was supposed to be the one where things finally calmed down.
I’d just healed from a car accident that totaled my car and left me bruised in more ways than one. I thought if I just made a few bold moves — new job, new apartment, new start — I could breathe again. But instead, it’s like I accidentally rebuilt my life inside a burning house. And now I can’t find the door.

The new job started great. I took a short-term permanent position — days, 7 to 7 — and I thrived. The house was calm, the clients were kind, and I started to think maybe I’d figured it out. Then that contract ended, and I took another full-time position at a different house.

That’s where everything shifted. One client there screamed through the night, cussed at me, sometimes swung at me. My body never learned the difference between “yelling” and “danger.” My anxiety was like an alarm system that wouldn’t shut off. I started doing full-time nights, and every shift felt like a test I was destined to fail. I called the EAP line more times than I can count just to get through a single night.

Eventually, I couldn’t do it anymore. I gave up my full-time position — and with it, my benefits, my structure, my sense of stability. I don’t even have words for the feeling that’s lived in my body since then. The closest I can come up with is this: I’m in a burning house. The house is on fire, and I can’t get out.

A month later, my dad’s marriage imploded. My stepmom cheated, and he called me crying so hard I could barely understand him. I skipped work, drove to him, and tried to be the strong one — for the man who once broke my heart doing the same thing to my mom. There’s no guidebook for supporting someone through the same wreckage they once caused.

Then I lost my Nana — my favourite person on this planet. I wasn’t ready, and I’ll never be ready. There are so many things I wanted to show her, and now I’ll never get the chance.

A few weeks later, a 15-year-old girl was hit and killed two doors down from me. I didn’t know her well — just her mom from years ago — but watching that scene unfold has stayed with me. You don’t forget something like that.

Last week, my anxiety caught me mid-shift like a feral cat on prey. I couldn’t handle it and had to leave. I called after-hours, asked them to extend the other worker’s shift — she’d already worked a full day. She was kind, but I still felt like a failure.

My mom helps me so much — especially financially — and I can’t help but feel like I’m failing her, too. From the outside, I’m sure it looks like I don’t want to work, like I’m just avoiding life. But the truth? I’m fighting so damn hard to show up, even when my body feels like it’s screaming “danger” for no reason. I want her to be proud of me. I want to be proud of me.

Instead, I’m exhausted. Scared. Angry at myself for being scared.

And underneath all of it — the panic, the exhaustion, the meds, the guilt — is this deep, gnawing fear of what happens if I can’t pull myself together fast enough.

What if I can’t make my bills? What if I lose what little stability I’ve managed to hang on to? What if this is the moment everything I’ve been trying to rebuild just quietly collapses again?

My life looks nothing like little Desiree had imagined. She dreamed of being strong, happy, maybe even healed by now. And I wish I could apologize to her — for all the times I let her down, for how far we drifted from the version of us she believed in. But I can’t go back. I can’t fix it.

All I can do is face her — the broken version — every morning in the mirror, and try to remind her that even if we’re not who we hoped to be, we’re still here. Still trying. Still fighting the fire.

S&S