I was told I’d lost my spark.
The words sat there between us, heavy and undeniable. And the truth is, they were right. I have lost my spark.
Not in the obvious way, perhaps. I am not outwardly miserable. I am not the person people would necessarily point to and say she is falling apart. I can still smile. I can still laugh. I can still hold a conversation and make myself appear intact. But inside me, there is turmoil running through every vein. A constant unrest. A heaviness that rarely loosens its grip.
I keep most of it in.
It spills out here instead, into my writing, because this is the safest place I know to be honest. I can pour my worst fears onto a page, lay my pain down in words, and for a little while it leaves me. Or at least becomes quiet enough for me to breathe.
If you met me, you would see that I do have a personality. Even writing that feels uncomfortable because I have no real ego to cushion me. Speaking well of myself feels awkward, almost embarrassing. But it is still true. I can laugh. I can care. I can sit with someone for hours if they need comfort. I can help an elderly lady reach the top shelf in a shop, balancing on my tiptoes as if I am far taller than I really am. I can help a flustered woman at a petrol station open the petrol cap when she has borrowed her husband’s car and cannot work it out. I can carry the weight of eight children’s needs, emotions, chaos and endless mess, and still somehow keep everything moving.
If I see someone struggling, I stop.
If someone needs kindness, I give it.
I can play video games to a decent standard for a 45 year old mam. I can snipe on Call of Duty. I can edit montages on Premiere Pro. I am down to earth. I can crack a joke. I can make my kids cringe at my humour, and although they would never willingly admit it, my jokes are funny. I enjoy a bit of harmless sarcasm. My empathy floods me more than it should sometimes, but I would still rather be too soft than too hard.
But trust is gone.
Some things happen in life that strip trust from you so completely that it never grows back the same. Since last year, I have known that something in me has changed for good. I do not trust. I do not believe I ever fully will again. So I stay alone, in my own company, where disappointment cannot walk through the door wearing a familiar face.
There was a time, about eighteen months ago, when I would go out walking and take photographs of everything beautiful. Flowers. Bees. The river. The sun. The moon. The trees. The clouds stretching themselves across the sky as though they had all the time in the world. I noticed things then. I felt pulled towards them.
Then I stopped.
And maybe that is what losing your spark looks like. Not becoming someone else entirely, but slowly ceasing to reach for the things that once lit you up. Quietly drifting away from what made you feel something. Letting life harden around you until wonder no longer feels natural.
But today I took photographs of the clouds.
And they mesmerised me.
That has to mean something.
Maybe I did not lose my spark at all. Maybe it was only dulled. Worn down by years of pain, by things that should never have happened, by the sort of hurt that changes the way you move through the world. And then, just as I was already carrying enough, I was retraumatised by someone I had believed I could trust.
That kind of pain does not just bruise you.
It alters you.
But sparks fade. They do not disappear.
I need to believe that now. I need to believe that there is still something in me worth finding again. I need to start looking for beauty in small things. I need to let myself enjoy gaming not as a distraction alone, but as something that genuinely brings me joy. I need to make the TikToks again. Edit the videos. Learn new things. Build something from the skills I do have. Not for clicks. Not for likes. But for the feeling. For the small flicker of pride. For the sense of purpose. For the reminder that I am still here.
Gaming brings me joy. It always has. My competitive side wants to improve, to sharpen, to keep going. Editing gives me something to focus on, something to shape, something I can make mine. Creation matters. It reminds you that even when life has taken so much, it has not taken everything.
I do not naturally believe I am talented. I can say I am a good mam, but even that I downplay because it feels easier to minimise myself than to stand fully in anything good. But I have written a book and self published it. I have another one in progress, this time fiction. That must count for something. It has to.
What I need now is belief.
Motivation.
Desire.
A reason to keep reaching.
Because the truth is, I have never really had anyone in life who believed in me in the way people should be believed in. I have had to become my own cheerleader, my own comfort, my own support system. And that is hard when your faith in yourself has been chipped away over years and years.
But maybe this is where it starts again.
Not with a miracle.
Not with some grand transformation.
Just with a photograph of the clouds.
Just with a small return to wonder.
Just with the quiet decision to believe that something in me is still glowing beneath it all.
Maybe I have not lost my spark.
Maybe I am only learning how to find it again.
