The Waiting Room

Friends of mine are about to be parents — and I can’t physically be there to support them.

I can’t explain why this is affecting me so much, all I know is that it is.

Regardless, something about this whole scenario made me reflect on where I am in life at the moment, and what’s going on.

Change is happening — within me, about me and around me.

And on one hand, that’s a good thing, but on the other — it feels like quite a solitary and almost lonely experience.

But here’s the catch:

Not everybody’s meant to be in the room while you’re being reborn.

Think about it, when you were born, only a few could be in the delivery room.

Essentials only.

Everybody else, even the people you love — and those who love you — belong in the waiting room.

Because birthing something new is painful.

Birthing a new season is personal.

Birthing a new you is going to require some space.

Right now, I’m in that room.

I’m in a season where God is stretching me.

Pulling things out of me.

Teaching me how to show up different.

And the truth is, not everybody can witness that.

Not everybody has access to this level of transformation.

Not everybody is meant to stand close while you’re being rebuilt.

Some people should only support you from the hallway.

Some people can only pray for you from the waiting room.

Some people shouldn’t even be in the building.

Because what God is doing in you isn’t meant for their eyes.

But on the other side of this pain…

There’s purpose.

There’s clarity.

There’s a version of me I never met before.

So if you’re in that birthing room right now; breathe.

Push through.

And trust that what’s coming out of you is worth all the pain.

What I’m realising, though — and what’s been hitting harder than I expected — is that this “rebirth” isn’t just about becoming someone new.

It’s about going back for the parts of me I left behind.

I abandoned versions of myself to survive. 

I don’t say that lightly. 

I don’t romanticise it either. 

I locked away the most fragile, frightened, unguarded parts of me because I genuinely believed they wouldn’t make it in the world I was in. 

I buried softness because I didn’t know how to protect it. 

I silenced the child in me because I didn’t know how to keep him safe.

And now… the danger is gone.

The threat has passed.

But the exile remained.

The deepest betrayal wasn’t committed by someone else.

It was committed by me — to me.

I walked away from the version of myself who needed me most. 

I didn’t leave him in anger. 

I left him in fear. 

I left him in desperation. 

I left him because I thought the world would break him if I didn’t. 

And somewhere along the line, I convinced myself that abandoning him was maturity. 

That suppressing him was growth. 

That forgetting him was responsibility.

Now I know better.

Now the walls are quiet enough for me to hear him again.

And unlocking that door is its own kind of grief.

But…

Resurrection always is.

Letting him out won’t make me childish.

It won’t make me weak.

It won’t undo the strength I’ve built.

It will just make me whole.

This is the blending and unblending.

The breaking and re-forming.

The part of rebirth no one prepares you for.

Because becoming someone new also means meeting someone you used to be — and not looking away this time.

One of the deepest betrayals that you can ever commit is forgetting the hands that rebuilt you when you didn’t even know you were broken.

The ones who nurtured the parts of you that were abandoned.

The ones who saw past the performance straight into the fracture.

When you walk away from someone like that, you’re not just closing a chapter — you’re burying a whole language you once spoke fluently.

Because loyalty like that is rare.

Sacred.

It isn’t loud or dramatic.

It’s a quiet, steady, and consistent heartbeat beside your own.

It’s the person who memorised the versions of you you didn’t dare introduce to the world.

And when you turn your back on that kind of devotion, you won’t just grieve them — you’ll grieve the bespoke safety they once held for you.

The grounding they offered.

The home they built in you.

And the hardest part?

You eventually realise that walking away from someone who stayed is walking back into the storm you swore you outgrew.

Healing becomes heavier.

Loneliness becomes louder.

And the silence they used to soothe becomes the echo that keeps you awake at night.

You’ll learn that some losses aren’t losses at all — they’re consequences.

And some goodbyes don’t break your heart immediately.

They wait.

They follow you.

They haunt the moments where you finally understand what you let go of.

One of the deepest betrayals you can ever commit is not just losing them —

it’s losing the you they once helped you believe in.

Even sadder still, is when that person you lost, is yourself.

28 is a weird age man…