(Thirteen Years Later, I Understand What Actually Happened)
There’s been a lot of growth lately.
Self Love Karma. Internal Narcissa.
A rebirth I never saw coming.
Thirteen years in the making.
And somehow…
it brought me back to something I wrote a long time ago.
A blog post from the beginning of my journey.
Its title was simple.
Honest.
And, at the time, it felt completely true:
MAR 29, 2015
BY KELLIE
“I broke my heart… so I can unbreak it.” ~ In truth, this is the truth, for we are, in the end, responsible for all of the decisions and choices we make; the ones that break us and the ones that cure us, for it is all just a twist of our mind.” Kellie J ~ Internal Narcissus
The Girl Who Wrote That Wasn’t Wrong
When I wrote those words, I meant them.
I could feel it in my body —
the ache, the confusion, the unraveling.
It felt like I had participated in my own heartbreak.
Like something in me had chosen what hurt me.
And in a way… that part was true.
But what I didn’t understand yet
was what had actually been broken.
I thought it was my heart.
What I Know Now
I hadn’t listened to Gold Dust Woman by Fleetwood Mac in a while…
But when it came up as the song for a recent post, it stopped me.
Did she make you cry?
Did she make you break down?
Did she shatter your illusions of love?
Yes.
She did.
And then —
Is it over now?
Do you know how to pick up your pieces and go on?
Yes.
Now I do.
Gratefully.
Because here’s what I couldn’t see back then:
She didn’t break my heart. She broke the illusion that kept me from it.
Hearts Don’t Break the Way We Think
For thirteen years, I did the slow, quiet work of healing.
Not fixing.
Not forcing.
Not pretending.
Just returning.
And somewhere along the way, something shifted:
I realized my heart had never actually left me.
It hadn’t shattered beyond repair.
It hadn’t disappeared.
It had been there the entire time —
waiting underneath the layers of meaning I had placed on love.
What broke…
was the story.
The Illusion Had a Purpose
The illusion wasn’t a mistake.
It was a starting point.
It was the way I made sense of love
before I had the language, the awareness, or the capacity
to see it clearly.
So I loved through projection.
Through longing.
Through hope that something outside of me
would finally meet something inside of me.
And when that didn’t happen —
when it couldn’t happen —
the illusion cracked.
And it felt like everything went with it.
But That Breaking Was the Way Through
Looking back now, I can see it differently:
I didn’t break my heart so I could unbreak it.
I allowed the illusion to break
so I could finally feel my heart.
There’s a difference.
A profound one.
Picking Up the Pieces
When the question comes —
Do you know how to pick up your pieces and go on?
It’s not really about going back.
It’s about learning how to stand
without the illusion you once depended on.
It’s about becoming someone who can:
- feel deeply without losing themselves
- love without abandoning themselves
- stay, even when the old patterns say run
That kind of integration doesn’t happen overnight.
For me, it took thirteen years.
I Was Her
I can hear that song now without falling into it.
That’s how I know.
I don’t listen from inside the wound anymore.
I listen from the place that lived through it.
I was her.
The one who thought she broke her own heart.
And now —
I am the one who understands what actually happened.
If You Know, You Know
There’s a quiet recognition that happens
when you’ve walked this kind of path.
You don’t need to explain it.
You just feel it:
The thing that broke you
was the thing that freed you.
Kellie J. Wright
Internal Narcissa
Self-love Karma
My new podcast, Self-love Karma, is up on Spotify and Apple!
www.kelliejwright.com