Putting Myself Out There Without Her

Lately, I’ve been struggling with something I didn’t expect.

Not just sadness.
Not just missing her.

Confidence.
The kind that comes from knowing there is someone in the world who sees you, backs you, believes you, without conditions.

And then I realised what’s actually missing.

My biggest supporter isn’t here.

The one I would have turned to first.
The one who would have said, Mum, that’s amazing.
The one who would have made my courage feel grounded instead of exposed.

Putting my work into the world has started to feel strangely hard.

Not because I don’t believe in what I’m writing.
Not because I don’t care.

Because I’m doing it without her.

Every time I share something.
Every time I talk about the books.
Every time I step forward with this work.

There’s a tiny instinct in me to turn around.

To look for her face.
To hear what she would say.
To feel that familiar, anchoring sense of you’re okay, Mum, I’ve got you.

And there is no one there.

Grief takes the people we love.

But it also takes the way we were held in the world.

It takes the person who reflected us back to ourselves.
The person who made us feel brave without trying.
The person who made our doubts quieter just by existing.

Kahlia was that for me.

She was the one who saw me not as a role, or a responsibility, or a version of myself I had to maintain.

She saw me.

And being seen like that does something to your nervous system.

It steadies you.
It gives your voice weight.
It makes risk feel survivable.

So when people talk about “losing confidence” after loss, I don’t think it’s always about self-belief.

Sometimes it’s about losing your witness.

Losing the person who knew who you were becoming.
Who you were trying to be.
Who you were when no one else was watching.

Trying to put myself out there now touches that absence constantly.

Because she should be here for this.

She should be seeing the books take shape.
She should be hearing the ideas.
She should be part of the becoming.

Instead, every step forward is also a step into the space where she isn’t.

And that space doesn’t feel empty.

It feels exposed.

There is something uniquely vulnerable about doing visible things when the person who would have been proudest is gone.

About sharing work when the one who made it feel safe to be seen is no longer here.

It’s not just nerves.

It’s grief.

It’s the nervous system noticing that the emotional ground underneath you has shifted.

It’s realising that confidence was never only internal.

It was relational.

It lived between us.

It was built out of glances, comments, shared excitement, her ridiculous humour, her fierce love, her way of making the ordinary feel like something worth showing up for.

And now that relationship doesn’t exist in the way it did.

So I’m learning to stand differently.

To back myself in a quieter way.

To notice when what I’m calling “lack of confidence” is actually longing.

Longing for the one person whose belief never felt earned or fragile.

Longing for the one person I didn’t have to be brave in front of.

Putting myself out there without her is not just about work.

It’s about learning how to be seen without the one who always saw me.

It’s about discovering what it means to take up space when the person who made space feel safe is gone.

And maybe that’s part of this stage of grief.

Not just surviving.

Not just missing.

But learning how to exist publicly in a world where your most intimate support has disappeared.

If you’ve lost the person who made you feel real.
The one who steadied you.
The one who witnessed you into yourself.

It makes sense if being visible feels harder.

It makes sense if confidence wobbles.

It makes sense if doing things you once did easily now feels like standing without a railing.

I don’t think this is about finding confidence again.

I think it’s about learning how to live without the one who made me feel held.

About doing things scared.
About being seen without the person who always saw me.
About letting it be harder, instead of telling myself it shouldn’t be.

Putting myself out there without her hurts.

Because it reminds me of who is missing.

And because it shows me how much of my courage once lived in her eyes.