Life has a way of forcing you into stillness. When everything around you crumbles, when the weight of the world feels unbearable, when you’ve given all of yourself and still feel empty—you are left with two choices: break, or rebuild.

I won’t lie. There were moments I felt like breaking.

I have battled PTSD, bipolar disorder, mood swings, and depression. Some days, I could barely pull myself out of bed. Some days, I felt like I was drowning in emotions I didn’t have the strength to explain. And yet, the world kept moving. Responsibilities didn’t stop, expectations didn’t pause, and people still pulled from me, unaware that I was running on nothing.

Last year tested me in ways I never imagined. I ended a relationship I deeply wanted. One I poured my soul into. And it broke me. Not just the loss, but the realization that I had given so much of myself, yet I was never truly seen, never truly valued. I walked away with nothing but exhaustion, drained of my love, my energy, and my spirit. And then, life didn’t give me time to heal. The weight of being out of work, the unexpected surgery, the long recovery, the piling responsibilities—it all came at once. I thought I could handle it. I thought I could push through, but when my body failed me, when I could no longer do the things I once did effortlessly, I had no choice but to sit in it. To feel everything I had been running from.

Preparing for my son’s graduation should have been a moment of excitement, a moment of celebration, but instead, I found myself withdrawing. I just wanted to be alone. I couldn’t explain it, but I didn’t want to be around people. That’s when I knew—I had to go back to therapy. I had to see my psychiatrist, get back on my medication, and take control of my mental health again. Because no matter how much I prayed, I had to also take action. Healing isn’t just spiritual—it’s mental, emotional, and physical.

And then this year, the surgery happened. I thought it would be simple. Something I could bounce back from quickly. But this surgery was nothing like I expected. It forced me into yet another level of surrender, another layer of patience, another reminder that healing has no shortcuts. I cry a lot. I get emotional, and sometimes it feels like the world is changing too fast, yet somehow, it also feels like we’re moving backward. There’s so much hate, so much anger, so much division. And as I get older, I realize that time moves whether we are ready or not. I used to picture myself in a different place by now. I thought I’d be married, settled, moving in a rhythm that felt secure. Instead, I find myself constantly adjusting, constantly learning, constantly relearning how to exist in this world.

And January—it never gets easier. In 2020, I lost my father. In December 2021, I lost my child. That kind of pain never truly leaves. It lingers. It shifts. Some days, it’s a whisper. Some days, it’s a storm. I wanted that baby so bad. So bad. And sometimes, that grief still knocks the air out of me. No matter how much time passes, I still feel the loss. I still cry. And I still ask God why. But through it all, my faith remains my anchor.

I am deeply spiritual. I trust in the Most High. I believe in the power of prayer, in the power of divine alignment. Not a day goes by that I don’t pray. I pray through my pain, through my uncertainty, through my grief. I light my candles. I speak to my ancestors. I trust that even in my hardest moments, I am never truly alone. And my advice to anyone experiencing something similar—love yourself first, pour into you, work on your healing, seek therapy, sit with your emotions, stop running. Search spiritually for God, pray, meditate, trust in divine timing. Don’t let your situation break your spirit. You are stronger than you feel in this moment. Always take a break for your mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health. You cannot pour from an empty cup. Love will always come. You won’t have to chase it. You won’t have to question it. When it’s meant for you, it will align effortlessly. And above all, life is short—so enjoy it. Live. Love. Heal. Breathe. Be present.

I am still learning, still healing, still growing. But what I know for sure is this: I will not break. I will rise. I will love again. But this time, from a place of wholeness. And when the time is right, when my spirit is aligned, when my heart is open and whole—love will find me. Not through force. Not through desperation. But through divine alignment.

In the river of time, we drift and glide on life’s current, side by side.
We flow together, bound by routines and survival’s embrace, with some finding solace in their pace and others who bear burdens, heavy and wide.
Yet despite our different paths, the goal for all remains unchanged, to stay afloat and abide.

We journey on this temporal stream, experiencing moments both shared and a dream.

For me, floating adrift for nearly three decades, it was in my recent path that I set myself ablaze,
consumed by flames of renewal, a heart reborn. In time’s river, I’ll continue to soar.

In the scorch, I let myself burn, shedding the old, bitter me that yearned to extinguish God’s goodness within.
Anger and resentment threatened to consume,
plunging me into dark, endless gloom.
Yet, like a phoenix, I rose anew, enlightened, with self-awareness shining through.
From the ashes, l emerged, reborn and free,
snuffing out the flames that once consumed me.

As I rise, the future’s dawn, In 2025, a new path drawn.
No longer bound by insecure ties, the past’s weight, I bid goodbye.
Goodbye to burdens heavy shadows, threatening to cave in on me,
goodbye to the whispers of names and flawed reflections;
I’ll let the flames of courage soar, And watch the past, forevermore.

With gasoline, I’ll set it free,
from chain of doubt I’ll break with glee.
A resolution blazes, fierce and true,
In the horizon’s arms, I’ll soar anew.
From the ashes, I rise, wings spread wide,
embracing the sky, my spirit twirled.
Let it all burn, in the night’s embrace,
I’ll find my freedom, in this vast space.

Thank you very much
Hide quoted text

On Mon, Feb 24, 2025, 10:43 PM Lauren Brill wrote:
Click write a letter now in the top right once you are signed in and then you can put it in the “chasing your dreams” category.

Lauren

On Mon, Feb 24, 2025 at 10:25 PM Leroy Bragg wrote:
Thank you very much, where would I put the story at
On Mon, Feb 24, 2025, 10:15 PM Lauren Brill <lauren@theunsealed.com

So for 24 years I have been a lube/tire tech, I have worked some Amazing jobs and never expected to move up, well after my Longest reign of 7 years at a job, I had a opportunity to get within 10 minutes of my home.So I hated leaving but it was time to go.The first day at this new job was SPECTACULAR, after that it was A NIGHTMARE, I regretted going to work, but I was working 5 days a week so I really couldn't leave.I received a call from my job I walked out on 20 years ago.It just so happened the interview was the day we were getting off work early for a Christmas party ( I didn't go to the party) I went to the job was Ready to be a LUBE TECH ( he didn't need what I was) So I figured a porter or something smaller,( I didn't care I WANTED OUT of that other job and I was willing to DO ANYTHING.My boss told me I was to be PDI TECH( ALOT BETTER and better pay) So I GREATLY ACCEPTED.I would quit this other job ( another story) And I'm VERY HAPPY I HAVE AMAZING COWORKERS, I'M HAPPY, and I love MY JOB AGAIN ( FIRST TIME IN YEARS) I THANK GOD for All the hardships cause it led me to my Final Auto shop.I don't know how long I have left to work on cars, But honestly I'm just getting started.PH 4:13 I Can do all things through Christ who strengthen me.

out of the echoing cave
By: Jim Kellogg
(The Queer Poet)
2-2025

the shards of glass
from the broken mirror
pierce the heavy and dark clouds
causing a turbulent storm
overwhelming and
tossing me around without direction
the invisible wounds have festered for years
leaking like droplets from a frozen river on a sunny day
i feel like i am trapped in an echoing cave

then…

i see her
my brave and cherished mother
a woman who shed her own tears
sometimes silent
sometimes wailing
she harkens me to the edge of the echoing cave
there…
she shows me an open window
an unexpected means of letting go

I see you.
Not just the you they pretend to notice,
but the you that lingers in shadows,
weighed down by whispers that won’t hush.
The you that wonders if silence
is the only way to be heard.

I won’t lie to you—
this pain ain’t easy to carry.
It seeps into your bones,
fills your lungs with the weight of nights
that stretch too long, too heavy,
too empty.

I know the darkside.
The way it calls your name like a lullaby,
promising rest where the world
only offers war.
I know how it feels
when the walls close in,
when every breath feels borrowed,
when hope is a language
you forgot how to speak.

But listen to me.

There are others who walked this road,
stumbled, fell, but still found their way.
Not because the weight vanished,
but because they learned—
somehow, some way—
to shift it,
to share it,
to bear it just one more day.

So if tonight feels like the last chapter,
I beg you—
turn the page.

Because the story ain’t done.
And neither are you.

Grief is a kingdom you never ask to rule.
A place with no stars, no dawn to break.
Endless night.
A place where echoes live longer than voices,
where shadows wear the faces you’ve lost—
but never quite get them right.

It crowns you in silence,
wraps its cloak around your ribs,
tightens until your breath comes in fractured whispers.

I thought I was ready.
I told myself time was mercy—
that knowing would soften the blow.
But grief doesn’t strike like lightning.
It seeps in slowly, like poison in your veins,
until one day you’re gasping,
and you don’t even remember what air felt like.

I try to remember her laugh—
but it’s like chasing smoke.
Somewhere in my mind,
her smile is fading at the edges.
Her voice, just a ghost of a ghost.

I keep pictures tucked away in drawers.
I can’t look at them for too long.
Each glance is a wound,
each memory a blade turning slow beneath my ribs.
But without them, she slips further from me.
I am caught between needing to remember
and not being able to survive it.

How cruel it is—
to lose her twice.
Once to death, and again to time.

My son was born after she left.
A few fractured weeks between his first breath
and the silence she became.
His due date was her birthday.
As if the universe thought irony was a kindness.

Since I was 18,
I have been carving out a life with trembling hands,
mistaking silence for strength,
mistaking independence for survival.
But I was wrong.

Strength is standing in the ruin
and naming every piece.
It is saying:
This hurt.
This still hurts.
It is learning to breathe in the dark.

They don’t tell you how grief is a thief—
how it steals the good with the bad.
How every sweet memory is chased by regret.
How every second of love feels borrowed.
How guilt hangs on your shoulders like a cloak
you can’t remove.

I should have stayed longer.
I should have loved louder.
I should have grown up faster,
instead of pretending I had all the time in the world.

I still don’t know how to carry this.
Most days, I bury it beneath busy hands and silence.
But it always finds me—
in the quiet, in the stillness,
in the moments when her name rises to my lips
but never makes it past my teeth.

Grief is a kingdom,
and I am its prisoner.
There are no windows, no keys, no doors.
Only the ghosts of what could have been
and the weight of everything I didn’t say.

And yet somehow,
even in this shadowland,
I am still searching for light.

What does it mean to have your dreams come true? I’m from a small town and my entire life I have heard “you can’t.” “You’re from a small town, it’s impossible.” Well, I am here to tell you, it is possible. If you were to ask any 10 people on the street, they would say “I wish I had chased my dreams when I was younger.” Everything has its own way of happening on its own time. And I am living proof. My first novel will be published on May 18th of this year, I have began to sing in public again after several years, I have someone who loves me for me and doesn’t look at me like an object and my family has seen my smile returned to me. Thank you The Unsealed for helping me achieve my writing dreams and I can’t wait to see what happens next!

So last year my mom was diagnosed with AML and immediately our lives changed instantly, we quit looking at 6 months from now and were thankful for the moment, we still planned ahead but new anything could happen, well Thanksgiving came and noticed my mom wasn’t acting like MY MOM, we had planned a Special Thanksgiving with homemade egg rolls and she was sleeping a lot, well we were praying and Trusting God and on Dec 15th we would take her to the hospital.The doctor told us her instines were twisted and asked if the cancer was being treated our hearts sank, We were planning on spending Christmas with my mom, but the 17th of December I had to sign a DNC for my mom, Everyday I spent with my mom was short.Dec 22nd she would pass away.I spend Christmas eve getting her grave site ready, Im STUNNED at what happened.We now cherish EVERY DAY and WILL MAKE HER PROUD.

feb 3
a journal on pursuit.
what if you did? what if you just kept going? what if that dream of yours wasn’t actually too big? that things start aligning, making sense. what if? most people look at what if in a negative light but what if something fucking incredible happened? what if you do in the future, in this moment, for the future? instead of the reminiscent ‘what if’, the optimistic version. perhaps there is no negative outcome of the pursuit of anything. as even failure has its benefits. even failure is a step towards achievement. as some movement is better than none at all. even when its redirection. even when it feels like the world is rejecting you, you are still on the path you are meant to be on, as long as that dream of yours goes nowhere.

truly, I believe everyone has desires deep within them that will never go anywhere. no matter if you try to supplement this desire by something arguably more ‘realistic’, it will never go away. nothing can ever scratch the itch of a dream you have except the pursuit of said dream itself. the more you hesitate, the more you cast fear and doubt on this dream, the farther it will feel. yet the stronger pull you have towards it. the more you tell yourself it isn’t possible, that it’s stupid to think you could have that, the more you will create a pull towards it. so why suppress it? why spend a life going after things you don’t truly want in hopes your truest desires will be fulfilled through supplementation?

most people say they wanted to be something, and decided otherwise as it didn’t seem practical. those people are not truly happy or fulfilled in what they chose to do instead. they are living a life of phony, of pretend. the active decision to not pursue their truest self. how can you argue with your own truth? as if your soul doesn’t reveal its own truth, but your mind will for it?

for years, I could feel exactly in my soul what I wanted out of life. I wished to be aloof in a beautiful way, out in the world, authentically, organically connecting with people of all origins and finding a way to impact communities globally. I always wanted to be a famous writer. to spend as much time as possible creating. I’ve always had an adventure spirit, and a creative mind. I’ve always had a fear or not seeing enough, experiencing enough, meeting enough people, creating enough memories. since I was young, fomo has kept me up at night. the fear of missing out. my parents would always tell me, “the day is over, you can do more tomorrow.” but that answer never silenced the desire in my brain to do as much as I could. I’ve always been so hungry for life. it has always came naturally to want more, to challenge each day, to search for beauty in every single day.

admittedly, I have spent a lot of time pursuing other passions, hoping that my truest passion would go away on its own. how foolish of me. to silence my own voice. to suppress my own purpose and wonder why I cannot find purpose elsewhere? that nothing else in the world has felt like I’m meant to do it, makes sense why now. I thought I wouldn’t be able to be out in the world on my own, so instead I got a job to travel and make money doing that, which sounds ideal. but it doesn’t scratch the itch enough. it isn’t enough. it is not the authentic, organic, traveling I am craving. and it will never be enough no matter how many times I try to tell myself that is the only way I’ll be capable of what I want to do, an easier way out of what I actually want to be out in the world doing. I have always written, but have always put it on the backburner. I have always told myself that it isn’t good enough, that in no way could I be a successful poet, writer, on my own. that I had to have a normal job and it could always just be a passion on the side.

but these thoughts consume me.

these passions consume me.
that’s how I know they are meant to be pursued relentlessly. no matter what I try to do instead, there will always be a nagging voice in the back of my mind containing my truth, begging for my acknowledgment. begging for my honest effort, and full effort towards it. as nothing will work out for me until I am on the path of truth. the versions of me that has tried to suppress my truth are the versions of me that keeps feeling rejection from the universe in different forms.

so, that feeling, urge, deep in your soul will never go away. trust it. respect it. chase it. spend your life not only in acknowledgement of it, but in pursuit of it.

The couch. I bought the big leather couch, chair, and ottoman back in 1999 or 2000 I think. I was working on the boats at the time. Had a few boatguy friends that would come right before or right after season to hang out… some pretty big guys. I bought the big furniture in a time when you could get that set for $1500 I think. And it was built to last. I still can’t believe how well it was made compared to what you get now for the same price.

A crush and my brother helped me get it into the house..and it wasn’t easy.
When my ex and I bought this house it wasn’t any easier getting it in here.

Last Spring I tried to get it out of here by myself and quickly realized I might die trying. While it was still standing on end from my attempt at finagling it out the door, I cut out the material on the bottom and saw the bones of it… it was beautiful.. real wood, lots of it… straps were as high quality as the best ratchet straps of today. The springs across the bottom were thick and solid. I cut open the one cushion that had finally broke down, and those springs too, were heavy duty. I ordered a replacement spring pack, which was much lighter built than the original I found, not the old, solid, barely squash support of 25 years ago. I took an awl and sewed the leather back together. I bought a slip cover (pretty nice one) thinking, I could rescue this couch, build it back better and not just toss it away.

As time went by, I just couldn’t sit on it. It sat empty. It looked better on the outside, but it sat like a big ass sad emblem of itself. And it had been ruined from the inside, of another who defiled it.

Gone were the multiple big asses that sat on it, at times slept on it. Gone were the dogs that had curled up on it, scratching it ever so slightly with their paws. Gone were the times I could curl my feet under me, or lay across it with my head in another’s lap watching yet another hunting show…or even better, Walking Dead.

I had hinted to others that I wanted it out, for the past 9 or so months. No one took the hint. I think some things are just meant to be done on your own. So the other night….

I cut it’s coverings off… razor to leather… the leather on couches from back then was much better, thicker, more like hide. Cut out enough foam to get to those nice big chunks of wood that were it’s frame with the skillsaw. Cut it into two manageable pieces… scooted it out the door (still had to get the right angle to make it happen).. pushed it down the stairs, and dragged it to the the far end of the yard.

As I poured some expired peanut oil on it, and put a couple of dry pieces of wood in a cardboard box in the middle of it to get it started…. a sadness engulfed me… as the fire would soon engulf the couch. I had started this with anger, but it ended with grief. Like for real grief.

As I watched that fire (I couldnt believe how fast it went up), the last 24 years of time with this couch went through me.. along with the 21 years with him….it still took a couple of hours to realize that it was just time for it to go, and for me to let go of the idea that I had made it better, built it back better, and to let go of the idea that I could ever sit on it in comfort again.

It was grief.

Then, today someone mentioned to me that I had burnt a couch on the evening of the Super Moon. So there’s that.