Navigating Healing: How Fictional Characters Inspire Personal Growth

One of the nice things about being a writer is that I can step outside of myself and ask, “How would a confident character handle this situation?”

Then I give myself guidelines to follow, and do my best to emulate how my imaginary character would be navigating my real life.

For example, I’ve given myself the very strict rule of no rebound dating. At first I felt done with relationships altogether, so it wasn’t really that big of an issue … but as time wears on, I find myself missing simple things like hand holding more and more. But since the last thing that I want to do is drive off a perfectly good partner with unresolved emotional baggage (or pick a bad one because of said baggage), I’m holding fast to my rule. This time is for rebuilding myself, and that’s what I’m going to do! Even if it leaves me feeling lonely.

Back during the summer, I told my domestic violence class that I was going out of my way to do one fun activity a week, outside of the daily grind and responsibilities, to remind myself that life still had a lot of enjoyable and beautiful things to offer. And I meant it. I was — and still am — doing my best to engage in some small activity every week, like hiking and baking.

But here’s the dark side to trying to emulate a fictional character: I felt like an impostor after saying that.

Despite the fact that my actions were true to my words, inside I didn’t feel like I was having all that much fun. Inside, I had days where I kinda wanted to step in front of a moving train. But I didn’t confess that to anyone, because I didn’t want anyone to stress and worry over me. I was already suffering from enough guilt over the events that landed me in a domestic violence class in the first place, and I didn’t want to add to it. I didn’t want it to turn into a Big Deal. So instead, I took my kids to the zoo so that they could have something exciting.

Enough time has passed now that the painful emotions are settling down, but the habits are still here. Still eating ice cream every Sunday, and going on long walks by the river. Still taking the kids to the park, and still looking for shapes in the clouds. Still watching the sunset.

My heart isn’t back yet to where it used to be. I’m still grieving the loss of the life I thought that I would have, and still trying to wrap my mind around what my future is going to be like. But it’s okay to feel a little bit like an impostor because my insides aren’t matching up to my outsides, because as long as I keep doing my best I’m sure that they’ll synchronize once again. One day I’ll see rainbows and feel the beauty with my entire soul.

I just have to keep looking up.