The Grace Within

Grace is a calm, quiet and happy person, who usually fills the room she is in with joy and laughter. She has a nice apartment, good friends and a promising career.

Everything she ever dreamed of.

She is the kind of person who every day smiles in the mirror of the hallway of her apartment before leaving it.

About three months ago, someone entered her life to change all of that. All the certainty of being complete, happy and accomplished faded as that person took up some space. Grace didn’t invite her, it was more like an unexpected invasion.

The person turned Grace’s life grayer. Not all of the time, of course, but more often than not. Grace didn’t like her presence, and Grace’s friends started to notice how Grace was different and would ask her daily if she was ok. But still, as irritated, bothered and sad as her presence made Grace, it looked like this person was there to stay.

With each day that passed, Grace felt more hopeless, and sure that her visitor would never leave. The guest seemed to only get closer and closer, taking over each aspect of Grace’s life. Day after day, when she faced that stranger, she wanted to kick her out of her life, to stop all the chaos she brought in.

Before meeting this other person, Grace used to come home after work and cook. She had dinner, read, and had a bath with candles and her favorite songs on. Now, Grace comes home and feels overwhelmed. She feels lonely, although the presence of the trespasser is loud and obvious.

Grace looks at the stranger, who brings all the bad feelings, and wants to shout “get out!”, but fails yet another night and lays next to the guest in bed.

One night Grace tells herself: “You have to be strong, Grace, you can do this. This is not the life you want, you don’t want her presence. You can’t deal with her living with you anymore. This is not who you are.”

“Tomorrow,” she says out loud.

After postponing it for so long, the moment finally comes, tomorrow is here. Grace gets out of work and decides, today is the day. If she comes, I will face her once and for all.

“Taxi!” She yells, and a driver stops for her to get in.

“Hey, Max,” she greets the doorman.

5, 6,…9,…17,18. “Finally.” Grace sighs as she gets out of the elevator.

Grace can hear the visitor inside. She is in there and it doesn’t sound like she wants to leave. Grace knocks on the door and enters her apartment, and there she is. Right there in the hall.

Although Grace is calm and respectful, what people would call a good person, right at that moment, she is mad, furious even. The time has come. She wants to end this!

Grace looks into the stranger’s eyes, as if trying to read her soul and feels a knot in her throat. “I will be strong now. I won’t give in. Think of all the pain and bad feelings she has caused you.” Grace whispers underneath her breath.

That’s her, that person right in front of you is the reason. The reason you lost your constant happiness and peace. The motive for your loss of control. And right there, in that room, you can decide what to do with her.

Grace pushes away the will to cry, to run, to hide.

And then something crosses Grace’s mind. “What if I hurt her? I could easily cause her pain.”

The silence gets heavy and both feel that this is not their normal encounter. Grace will resist the invader’s attempts to control her this time.

Grace is deciding what to do while staring right in the eyes of that person. And then suddenly she realizes something. There is already pain in those eyes. She realizes that the other person is already hurt. And that those hurt eyes look so familiar. In fact, she is staring at a reflection of herself.

“Is this new?” Grace had never observed that feeling within herself before. “Since when has that pain and that sadness been there? What could possibly have caused it?” Her eyes seem to carry a heavy type of sadness and pain so common that it is already part of her. Maybe Grace never really paid attention to the signs.

Grace gasps, takes a step back, brings her hand to her chest, and feels her heart beating fast, her throat closing. She has difficulty breathing as one thought crosses her mind. “Could this somehow be my fault? Maybe I hurt her as much as she hurt me?” Grace ponders.

Grace then makes a decision that surprises even herself. She gives the stranger a hug, and backing up, looking into her eyes in the mirror, she says, “I’m sorry I hurt you, I’m sorry I didn’t see the pain growing in your heart and mind. I want to fix that; it’ll be ok.”

After facing herself and those excruciating, pain-causing thoughts, Grace discovers for the first time the anxiety that turned her life upside down for the last few months. Grace smiles, feeling relieved. She finally found the peace within, realizing that the ugly part of herself is also part of who she is, and deserves to be taken care of.

Grace takes off her shoes and heads to the bath, lighting her beloved candles for the first time in a long time. Today, there will not be any songs. Only Grace’s thoughts echoing in the bathroom as she connects to this new part of herself and understands that it can be controlled. She takes a deep breath and throws her head back, feeling the lavender bubbles touching her skin.

Grace and the “stranger” become friends after a while, and now they live together in peace and harmony. Sometimes, when the person called anxiety wants to take control, Grace realizes, and thinks to herself, “I am stronger because of you and I won’t let you cause me any more pain… I won’t let you cause me any more pain.” She repeats again. Grace breathes in the rhythm that the therapist taught her.

All her friends now see Grace is still the same happy person she has always been, and some of them, following Grace’s example, started to take control again and deal with the anxiety within themselves. What once was a strange invasion in their lives and minds, is now the proof of how resilient they are.

Laura Sant'Ana is 19 years old. She is studying Pedagogy at UEM. She is passionate about education, reading, and traveling.