Her name bears such a sweet sound to my ears.

She passed away peacefully, in her care home surrounded by her carers who were fond of her. My mother and aunt were with her this past weekend, so she felt surrounded, supported and grounded before the moment came. She left us in the best way possible: peacefully, without pain and surrounded with care.

The past couple of months her physical state had deteriorated and her cognitive functions had diminished. She seemed lost in a world of her own out of space and time, still able to recognise family but hazy about the details of people’s locations, jobs, relationships. I knew the final moment was coming and I had started thinking about her death and legacy.

My grandmother was a humble woman and a true powerhouse. A deeply empathetic soul who has always turned towards others as she knew and understood the importance of family, community and interdependent relationships.

She was a young soul with a child like expression, highly optimistic and playful yet truly cynical and sassy, and had such great character. She loved ABBA, Fort Boyard and Amour, Gloire et Beauté (if you know you know).

She, along with my grandfather and aunt, took care of me when I was born. My mum was in a coma and recovering for months after a HELLP syndrome (she survived) and my dad tried his best to look after her.

My grandma held the family together by her optimistic nature and soft words. She and my grandpa were steady oaks in the tempest when ego battles raged and misunderstandings arose.

My grandma would prepare food and care for her home, always insisting to offer everything she could think of to anyone who came across her path. She would keep all the gifts made to her to then offer them to guests, which drove me crazy.

She would also start pointless arguments with my grandfather, just to keep the joy of chatting, arguing and laughing together, because it was always harmless and kept them young and alert.

She was from a time when social media was not necessary because in person interactions were happening on the daily. She knew the postman, the fishmonger, the bus driver, all by their first names.

She was from a place where people would greet each other in the street, friends and strangers alike, asking about every single member of the family and knowing absolutely everything about everyone, the epitome of the European grandma.

She knew the war, had her most prized possession - her bike - taken by the Germans during the French occupation, and would tell everyone with pride and patriotism that her mother hid 30+ Jews in her farm to protect them against the invader.

She was humble. Only a couple of possessions, nothing fancy, just the qualitative bare minimum.

Her most prized possession later in life was her love. Her love for her family and especially for me.

I was partly raised by my grandparents and was their only grandchild, so I was extremely privileged since day one to receive so much love, kindness and attention. With my grandma gone, a chapter of intergenerational care, devotion and education is ending.

She was so proud of me for my studies and career, since she would have loved to have had access to education but her family had prioritised men’s education and not women’s.

I cherish all the times she encouraged me to play the piano because she was in awe of my creativity and personality.

Her devotion, encouragements and faith in me were a fuel to my success that I am truly ever so thankful for.

I have been privileged and gifted to have been so loved and cherished by her and by my grandpa. I was their only grandchild and they were obsessed with me, keeping pictures of me everywhere in their house (it really was too much) and singing my praises to all they encountered.

I remember the times she was concerned by the holes in my distressed jeans because she was scared I was in need of anything.

I remember her and my grandpa endorsing every single one of my obsessions - especially Harry Potter - because they were rooting for me and my happiness. Their encouragements have led me to pursue a life in the UK since 2013, even though it meant that my reality would be spent far away from them.

I am so honoured to integrate her lessons and love and am blessed to pass them on to others and to future generations.

I don’t know how to speak about her, and I don’t know how to not speak about her.

Her love was pure. Her smile was everything. Her smell was so comforting. Her house was the best home. Her voice was the most beautiful sound, even when she was in a bad mood.

I remember her soft presence, her frail skin until the end, her eyes gathering all the vulnerability and strength in the world, and the joy of her expression every time she saw me. In later years she started saying that I was so beautiful (qu’est-ce qu’elle est belle) and this meant the world to me, because I knew she was proud of my personality and expression.

This Substack is called grief.growth.gratitude. because of the grief I hold about the come down of my previous life (11-year relationship ending, career crisis, job loss, friendship breakups, house move, financial difficulty and lack of support) and the journey of growth that followed. Rethinking, rebuilding, restructuring, and finding expansion in places I never thought were possible gave me a new found sense of autonomy and agency, even though I tend to veer towards hyper independence and isolation at the moment. The gratitude arose when considering the gift of everything I received, and the people who have loved me over time. My grandma was a major part of my life. Her love was so pure that it made me feel whole, and carried me through every version of growth that this Substack is named for.

Au revoir mamie chérie, je t’aime fort fort fort 🌸💗🌸

Ta petite fille à qui tu manques déjà, Anne-Margaux

When I announced my Substack grief.growth.gratitude. I had been obsessed with those three words for months as they articulated perfectly what I was going through. The grief of losing it all - which now that I think of it is so dramatic that it’s almost comical (if you want to adapt my life into a novel, play or musical, hit me up) - and the space that was left once the relationship, the friendships, the job, the family, and connected identity disappeared. The growth required to get myself through this situation from navigating all elements simultaneously with uncertainty. The gratitude for every step I had taken since then to reclaim my sense of self, my voice and my agency.

Three beautiful pillars that seemed unshakable as they were now part of my new identity, hopefully leading the way in the rebuilding process of my new life. The first article was written, feedback was positive, encouragements were welcomed, and a sense of hopeful pride blossomed.

Then, the overthinking started.

Once I had announced my Substack publicly, I had set an expectation and a promise to myself and others. And as much as I wished to follow through on this idea I could not bring myself to do it, because I was no longer trusting in my instinct and was not sure yet of my direction. This incapacity to move forward forced me to retreat and inquire about the nature of the problem, and resulted in me finally identifying a pattern I had subjected myself to for years.

In the middle of rebuilding, I thought that writing and sharing the learnings of my lived experience would help me in my process of becoming, as I was crystallising and metabolising the lessons. I did not expect the process of writing to bring to light different belief systems and patterns I had carried out for years without fully acknowledging. With every unfinished draft, the same uncomfortable truth emerged: I wasn't ready to accept my own story because I hadn't fully integrated it yet.

My problem was that, the breakup of my eleven year relationship also came with job ending, career questioning, friendship loss, family difficulties and home and financial distress. I painfully experienced the reality of dealing with my new life without the support of my partner, and without the qualities he brought to my life and which I had come to rely on for a decade. Amidst this uncertainty, loss and pain, arose a deep period of depression tied to the biggest identity crisis. Who was I beyond my relationship, job, friendships, family? And, most importantly, who was I becoming because of them?

Looking back, I realise now how much of my identity had been borrowed. My sense of self had been tied to the projects made as part of my couple. My sense of worth was linked to my career status. My friendships reassured that I belonged even when they were no longer fulfilling. When all changed at once, I felt lost, not knowing which parts of me were actually mine or how far I had come away from myself. And by doing so,

I buried my own voice.

I had buried my own instinct for the sake of following the pack. I took more time and energy outsourcing my decisions, sense of self and taste to a familiar setting than to create my own. Following an identity set by my education, nationality and family, operating on personal and professional projects from that place, and going with the flow I guess, because no event had happened to divert me away from that path. That event, as I now recognise it, was the breakup of my 11 year relationship, because every single area of my life completely morphed because of it. This was not done consciously, but I see now that it was done with the need of wanting to be safe, to belong and to be liked.

I didn’t know who I was anymore nor where I was going, because my grief was all consuming and I literally felt like I was dying. The cognitive dissonance created by the new post-breakup reality felt like a void in my chest and a constant feeling of inadequacy, feeling like I had been robbed of my true life and experiencing a weird alternate reality. The concept of the end felt overwhelming and it took me some time and investigation with my therapist to realise that it was not connected to any suicidal thoughts, but to the somatic experience that my body and mind were going through because they were processing multiple losses at once.

For a brief period of time when taking anti-depressants I was inhabited by two distinct and contradictory personalities: a deeply depressed human going through the biggest life changes, and a deliriously ecstatic and way over the top character, propelled as I was by the heavy dose of dopamine I was receiving through my anti-depressants. Crying to my therapist asking about the meaning of life in the morning, teaching yoga at lunch time and dancing my heart out with giggles at ecstatic dance in the evening. This period felt so confusing both to me and others, because the dopamined ecstatic version of me was so positive that people around me had trouble fully understanding the severity of the problematics I was dealing with since I was still enthusiastic and weirdly joyful through it all. This double personality period felt even more confusing because although the anti-depressants helped, my emotions and personality were not matching my words, and my voice was therefore dissonant and inauthentic.

I also feel that there is an awkward grey area that develops in relation to big life changes and discussing them in Western society. It is acceptable to talk about facts, but quickly and whilst focusing on the positive before moving on. There is little space to express emotions and feel witnessed and supported in that process, because the world keeps turning and we need to keep on going. Feelings of inadequacy and shame kept creeping up, making me feel hopeless and small, unsure what to do about them.

And that is why for months, I did not know who I was or where I was. I struggled to articulate what was happening for me, feeling stuck between the reality of what I was going through and the reluctance and fear to connect with other humans from that perspective. This made me more unsure about my sense of self, because I was bargaining between caring for myself and being true to my lived experience and making sure I would still be belonging in society to avoid further damage.

Stuck in an in between, I retreated and spent such a long time of the past year in my room. I alternated crying sessions every couple of hours, sleeping more than I probably should, attempted reading all the books I set aside for years but was not focused or interested enough, journaling sessions where I avoided the big questions, small creative projects that left me frustrated, repetitive piano practice, shameless solo street singing and a LOT of doomscrolling on social media (not proud, brain rot is so real).

In and outdoors, I looked for myself in others, connecting with their spark in the hopes that their wounds and life choices would echo mine, that connecting with their projects would give me inspiration to take on mine. Getting closer to self-employed creatives whose life paths were totally different from any person I had encountered in corporate. Conversations that began about careers and inspiration somehow always ended up being about meaning beyond metrics, status or finances. This process was as valuable as therapy because it expanded my world view and my understanding of life. I have met incredible people with the most inspiring life paths through this process and I am so thankful because their spark gave me so much hope and motivation to focus on my own projects and build my voice and agency.

Some periods of life are for growth and expansion and others for pause, retreat and integration. This is where I started hearing my voice for the first time. A tiny whisper at first, becoming fuller every day. A voice that realises the strengths gained through hardship, of having to rebuild after loss and figuring things through with a different plan. A voice that felt cheesy and cliche - because what can be more cliche than a breakup and telling the whole internet about it I ask you - yet authentically mine.

I still don’t feel like I have found my voice nor my agency yet. I don’t know who I want to be nor what I want to do. And my sense of self has definitely grown throughout this time. I also feel less constrained by academic and stylistic demands, because studying art history for 8 years, studying 2 masters and writing 3 dissertations as well as being the daughter of a writer, has made me extremely self judgmental about my writing, critical thinking, style and vocabulary. The viewpoint of my Substack was initially meant to be neutral, but I would continue betraying myself and speak inauthentically if I didn't use ‘I’ to claim my lived experience.

So the second step was definitely harder than the first because this article has been in my head for months, blocked by a perfectionistic sense of shame and overshadowed by unrealistic expectations towards the cooler character I wanted to become to be able to write it, when in reality I needed to see myself as I truly was, with my stories and struggles, my giggles and silliness, my failures, my emotional landscape and my not-so-okay-but-trying-anyway mindset.

So where did i go? I ran around like a headless chicken trying to find myself and my peace whilst tending to my grief, dealing with buried trauma and searching for people and places that would feel like home. I went to therapy, financial help services, conscious retreats, shared community circles, founder events, wellbeing sessions, ecstatic dance and on long walks for entire days by myself in the British countryside. I also moved to a new place, pitched myself to corporate clients, worked with an artistic and business coach and am starting to develop my artistic career based around piano and, ironically, my voice (yes I know). I stopped my anti-depressants, started ADHD medication, and although I am still not feeling great or productive or healed, I feel healthier and positive. I finally believe better days are coming and this change was cathartic and integral to my character building and lived experience.

So actually maybe I’m not doing too bad? From a Bridget Jones & Fleabag perspective I am probably thriving. I already know that this moment is pivotal for the rest of my life and that my voice, currently relatively quiet, will develop as a result. Taking that second step was definitely the hardest, because I needed to trust that my voice could be worth sharing before it was perfect, fully formed or healed. So five months later, here we go! If my story gives you anything, I hope it is permission. Permission to disappear when you need, permission to rebuild slowly, and permission to let your voice emerge before it is polished. There is only one of you, and your voice is worth hearing.

AMx

— Music recommendation for this article: where did I go by Jorja Smith —

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The end of my home and the life we had built inside it. The end of the career I had spent a decade building. The end of love, and of the person who had been my everything.

The END.

Every element of my life was entangled through a subtle web of connections which was more fragile than I thought — because when one thing crumbled, everything else fell apart. My ex partner and I had moved to the UK from France together after my ERASMUS, and had therefore built everything from scratch together: homes, friendships, hobbies, a future. I went from planning to jointly buy a home and discussing how to raise kids, to relying on my savings, living in a house share with strangers, and having to leave the career I had spent a decade building.

I also had to confront, for the first time, the end of privileges that come with a heteronormative, monogamous relationship — privileges I had not named because I had not needed to. The single tax, the pink tax, the year-long waiting lists for support. The particular vulnerability of being a woman rebuilding her life alone. I had not seen them because I had not had to. Losing them made them visible.

The end was everywhere. It felt everywhere. Strong, unavoidable, sharp — it made me delirious. I thought I was literally dying.

I cried every day, sometimes for hours, not understanding how things could have turned this bad and resenting myself for not having prevented it. I felt comfort in other people’s pain. I trauma bonded with people and causes that were not related to me in order to feel connected. I struggled to express how I felt because I no longer had the support system I was used to. Some people were no longer here. Others did not know me. Some had no idea what I needed, and neither did I.

I had no family to rely on because of physical, intellectual and emotional distance. Burgeoning friendships to precariously draw energy back from. A job I could not hold because my home and my life were falling apart.

My greatest pride is that I did not fall into drugs or alcohol. I have been sober on this excruciatingly painful journey because I could not afford to fall any lower. My greatest relief is that I did not end up on the street.

I started antidepressants and was in a highly delirious state for a couple of months, which helped me to process my emotions without exploding. I had to fully welcome my feelings in order to build myself back up, and so I invested my energy in my yoga practice, journaling, meditation, breathwork, wellness events, movement, workshops, courses, teachers. I was forced to slow down. And slowly, something began.

I have changed and evolved more in the past year than I had done in years.

I am still crying every day. I still feel lonely. I still lack community. I feel such a deep rage for the state of the world and the way it treats vulnerable people and especially women. I am living from my savings. I am applying for jobs and getting interviews that I am subconsciously self-sabotaging because I am scared of falling back into burnout.

But I am also here. I am showing up for myself, taking things slowly, because I just can’t do more. I am taking the time to sleep without an alarm. I cook for myself every day to eat healthy. I read. I educate myself. I am seeing a therapist. I am talking about my situation.

I am building new relationships out of curiosity, vulnerability, openness and shared values. I find refuge in music and in the words and worlds of others, dreaming of connections and places that have not manifested in my life yet. I also met a partner who is supportive, even though we both know it is for the short term.

I am building my financial education. I am showing up for myself.

Three words kept coming back to me. Obsessional thoughts about the meaning of my life, of this suffering, of this situation.

grief.

An all-encompassing void. A whole of nothingness. I have experienced it in many forms this year — the grief of a relationship, of a home, of a future, of a version of myself I thought I knew. I have experienced it because I am surviving through it.

growth.

The inevitable resilience through pain. The rebirth from the ashes. The passage of time. I did not choose it — I was forced into it. And it does not feel like growth when it is happening. It feels like barely staying alive.

gratitude.

The reassessment of thoughts. The acknowledgement of feelings. The rediscovery of who I am and what my values are. Sitting in a room that is mine, realising I still know what I like, what I think, what I want — things that had quietly disappeared. Gratitude for what no longer is, and the hope for what hopefully will be.

These 3 words are guiding me on my way to identifying what was, unfolding what could be, and unravelling what will.

Welcome to my Substack. grief. growth. gratitude.

I want it to be a safe space — my safe space — to talk about all of the problematics I encountered as well as the opinions I thought would never be worth sharing, until I realised that my heroes were actually living from sharing their opinions and truth with no shame but better — with personal pride, public recognition and financial stability and wealth.

Sharing what resonated with me and what can inspire you, so that we can find together support, meaning and softness on the journey. Building my self and my work in public, with the aim to build something meaningful and true.

Thank you for being here.

I love you and — finally — I love me.

Anne-Margaux