Cassian
It’s amazing how much lighter life feels when you stop carrying weight that never belonged to you.
For most of my life, I thought anger was a personality trait.
I wore it so long that I couldn’t tell where it ended and I began.
Every decision I made, every relationship I sabotaged, every wall I built around myself somehow traced back to one man.
Whether I admitted it or not, Marius had been shaping my life long before I ever knew his name. Now he’s gone.
People ask me all the time how that feels, expecting some dramatic answer like I suddenly woke up healed the morning after he died.
Life don’t work like that. Truth is...it was fucked up that he died.
Nobody celebrates death, no matter how complicated the person was, but I also understand something now that I couldn’t have understood a year ago.
The world doesn’t stop turning because one man stops breathing.
Morning still comes.
Kids still laugh.
Businesses still open their doors.
Families still gather around dinner tables, and somehow life quietly asks everybody left behind to keep living.
That’s exactly what I chose to do. Healing was never some loud, dramatic moment where everything suddenly made sense.
It happened little by little, almost without me noticing, until one day I realized I was smiling more than I was surviving.
One day you just wake up and realize you’re laughing more than you’re overthinking.
You sleep through the night without replaying old conversations in your head.
You stop expecting the worst to happen every time your phone rings.
And the anger that once felt permanent gets replaced by something you never thought you’d have again. Peace.
These days, home is only a short walk away from my brother’s. Kade insisted on buying me the property across the street from his place, claiming it was so the twins would always know where Uncle Cass lived. I told him he was doing too much.
He ignored me, like he always does, and truth be told, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Having my brother and his family right across the street means the twins will always know where to find Uncle Cass, and if I’m being honest, it reminds me every single day that after everything we survived, none of us has to do life alone anymore.
Watching Kasen and Kinsley grow up, seeing Ysis finally smile without fear living behind her eyes, hearing Kade complain about diaper duty while pretending he isn’t secretly enjoying every second of fatherhood...
it’s hard not to feel grateful for the life we’ve been given after everything we’ve survived.
Work has been rewarding too. Being nominated for the Business Achievement Award is something I never saw coming.
Years ago I was just trying to survive another day.
Now I’m being recognized for helping build something that’ll leave a mark long after I’m gone.
That kind of success means more to me than any title ever could because this time, I earned it without losing myself in the process.
When it comes to dating, I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.
Matter of fact, I’ve never felt more at peace.
People hear the word celibacy and assume it’s some kind of punishment, but for me it’s become preparation, a season God is using to shape me into the husband I want to be long before I ever become one.
I’ve spent enough years searching for comfort in the wrong places to know I don’t want temporary anymore.
The next woman I give my heart, my body, and my last name to will be my wife.
Until God decides she’s ready to walk into my life, I’m perfectly content becoming the man she’ll deserve when she gets here.
For the first time in a very long time, I’m not waiting for life to get better because somewhere along the way, I realized it already had. Sera will always hold a place in my heart, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with admitting that.
Some people leave fingerprints on your soul that time never completely erases, but loving who she was doesn’t mean I have to stop living the life in front of me.
I’m finally learning there’s enough room in a healed heart to honor yesterday while still looking forward to tomorrow, and if you’ve been paying attention, then you already know... that’s a blessing all by itself.