This was a life (A journal)

Some days it still doesn’t feel real. It's raw,
like I’m walking through someone else’s loss – watching it happen from a distance.
But it did happen,
I lost my twin.
I still don’t know how to explain what her loss really means.
It wasn’t just losing someone close.
It was like losing half of how I understand the world.

And when your mind is struggling with the loss when you’re working on holding it all together.
In the midst of loss, all we need is someone to see.
To help us acknowledge the weight of it,
and to reach out.
To be there, and to stay.
We are not too much,
we are not a burden.

A difficult life, I've known much trauma... I keep going.

I am still here,
with my twin physically gone, I know she's still with me – the signs are there.
And I am trying to function in a different ‘normal’ without her.

But it's not normal – it's isolating and lonely.

Ilana Estelle is a mental health and wellbeing advocate who combines educational insight with her personal experience of living with physical, mental, and emotional disabilities. She holds diplomas in Counselling, Diet and Nutrition, Nutritional Therapy, Psychotherapy and Counselling, and Stress Management. Through her writing, Ilana supports others in navigating their emotional, mental, and physical health challenges. In addition to writing for The CP Diary, her work has appeared in healthy lifestyle magazines. Ilana is also the author of three books: Cerebral Palsy: A Story – Finding the Calm After the Storm, Spirituality, Healing and Me, and Survival: The Covid Years – Time for Change.

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