She Got on a Plane

The difference between what happened and the story I made it mean — and why that difference changes everything.

After we hung up the phone, I noticed a strong feeling move through me. I checked in with my heart and stayed with what was there.

First came resentment — resentment that she could travel, that she could get up and go while I felt stuck here.

Underneath the resentment was jealousy. And the jealousy was useful — because it showed me what I actually wanted. To travel. That was direct information from my emotions.

But there was still no peace. Something deeper stirred beneath the surface, so I remained with the feeling — present, grounded in the emotion, not following the story or judging my friend.

Then the word arrived.

Abandoned.

And with it — a memory. Seven years old. My mother has left the country for three weeks. I am staying with my grandmother, but I do not feel safe there.

I felt it.

Afterward, I saw something that took my breath away.

My mother did not abandon me.

She got on a plane. She had someone care for us. She came back.

That is what happened. That is the fact. Everything else — the abandonment, the meaning, the story — that was built by a seven-year-old who did not have the capacity to understand what was actually happening.

The truth, underneath it all, was simpler and more tender than any story.

I felt afraid. I felt alone.

That's it. That's what was real. The abandonment was a story built on top of the feeling — to explain it, to give the fear a shape, to make sense of something a small child could not make sense of any other way.

Still, knowing the story didn't bring peace or clear the agitation in my body. The story was only information.

So I turned my attention to what was actually here.

Afraid. Alone.

I sat with it. Not the story of abandonment, resentment, or jealousy — just the feeling itself. Afraid. Alone. I brought my full presence to it. I let it be real. I didn't try to fix it, explain it, or move it along.

After a few moments —

I burst out laughing.

Not because it was funny. On the other side of all I had been carrying was joy — life, pure energy, moving freely through me, no longer weighted by meaning or shaped by old understanding.

Just life. Just love. Just the pure energy of being here.

This is what I have come to understand about emotions.

Emotions are energy tied to a story — a belief we live out of.

When we are unconscious, the story runs. The emotion repeats — not because something new happens, but because the old story is still playing.

Without the story — when we are present with what is actually here beneath the meaning we have made — we find pure energy. It completes its circuit. It clears.

Pure energy is love. It is possibility.

It is not darkness on the other side of the story. It is the energy of life itself — before we wrapped it in meaning, before we gave it a name that frightened us, before we decided it was too much to feel.

The emotion is never the problem.

The story is what keeps it stored.

And the story is always younger than we think.

My friend in Amsterdam gave me a gift she didn't know she was giving.

She got on a plane. And this morning, fifty-five years later, that little girl who felt afraid and alone finally let herself feel it.

And let it go.

This is what is waiting on the other side of every story we are afraid to feel.

Not more pain. Not darkness. Life itself.

What story might you be living out of — that began as something much simpler than the meaning you gave it?

If any part of this resonated with you, I invite you to connect. I'd welcome a conversation — please feel free to book a time here.