The Garden of What Remains

Still Life: Flowers & Fruit by Severin Roesen

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Lately, I’ve been thinking about love—not the kind that bursts onto the scene like fireworks, but the quieter sort that slips in through the kitchen window, makes itself at home in the corner chair, and sometimes, despite everything, leaves without a word—leaving the kettle whistling and the questions humming in the air.

When you’re younger, it’s easy to get caught up in the fairy tales—the sparks, the fate, the butterflies. You mistake the flash of lightning for a steady flame, and you convince yourself that the ache you feel must be sacred.

There’s a certain patience in letting relationships teach you. Not rushing to tidy up the bruises or spin the story into a compact lesson or a neat victory.

Just sitting with it.

Asking quietly:

What was this relationship asking from me?

Who did I become while I was tending to it?

What parts of myself did I leave out in the cold?

I carry these questions into my work with women who come to sit with me—some fresh from heartbreak, others tangled in sticky thorns, many just quietly carrying a loneliness that no amount of distraction can fill.

They come weary, still hoping the fire can warm them somehow.

Beneath their stories, I see a shared ache—the sense that love has always been just out of reach, or that it slips away before they can truly hold it.

We don’t rush past that ache.

We don’t try to patch it up like a leaky roof with duct tape.

Instead, we sit with it, give it room to breathe, and listen to what it’s telling us.

Because heartbreak isn’t a sign you’ve failed—it’s a season of growth, even if it feels raw and relentless.

I’ve watched women rebuild not through quick fixes or pep talks, but in the slow work of setting boundaries that sting at first, then help them to heal.

Through tears shed in an aching silence.

Through choosing to text someone who truly listens rather than the one who only took. Through learning that being lonely isn’t a fault—

it’s a truth,

honest and unvarnished.

Even now, when I settle down with a cup of tea by the fire and hear the quiet purr of the cat, I find myself thinking of the people who shaped me. Each one brought out different parts of me.

Some gentle.

Some fierce.

Some lost.

And one, home.

If I could whisper something to those quietly sorting through the remains of their broken heart—it would be this: it’s ok to step back, to rest from the search, to simply be for a while.

You’re not broken.

You're unfolding into someone who’s learning to listen—

to herself,

first and foremost.

And maybe the most important love story you’ll ever live isn’t with someone else, but with the part of you that learns to choose yourself. To root down in self-trust, even when the ground feels uncertain.

Healing isn’t neat.

It isn’t tidy.

Sometimes it feels like winter in your bones.

But in the quiet that follows—after the frost has melted—something soft stirs again.

A flicker of warmth.

A sense that you can bloom once more, on your own terms.

And when that love does come back, you’ll know the waiting wasn’t wasted.

You'll know that you were always worth tending to.