Coping with Loss and Starting Over

Since losing my friend Rahseena, I’ve felt like a failure. This whole process has been so difficult, and I feel like there’s nothing—or barely anything—I can do. I feel like I’m failing her, not just in her death, but that I failed her in life. I wish I could’ve spent more time with her, but life became busy, and every moment became, “one day.” Then one day came, and I got the phone call that she had passed.

It completely shattered me. WHY her? WHY now? If only…

I originally wrote this because of the dark time I went through in 2018, and I felt like a failure then. Now, those same feelings are here again.

You’re Not a Failure: Finding Strength Through Life’s Challenges – 2018

Not because it didn’t work out doesn’t mean you failed.

Life is a constant journey. We’re forever growing and evolving. Oftentimes, when life doesn’t go as planned, we beat ourselves up about it. We ask ourselves, “What went wrong? Did I fail?”

Early this year, my world came crashing down when I found myself going through a separation. I couldn’t understand why it was happening, and I felt like a failure. I was in a state of depression, trying to wrap my head around what was happening in my life. After all, this wasn’t the plan I had.

What do you do when life doesn’t go as planned?

It took a while for me to accept that just because the life I had envisioned didn’t work out, it didn’t mean I was a failure.

I felt defeated and disappointed.

Where did I go from here? How was I going to move on?

I knew starting over wasn’t going to be easy, but I also had to accept that starting over was okay.

Life is a journey, and sometimes we’re going to run into detours. But don’t let those detours stop you from moving forward.

Update 2024:
Since Rasheena’s passing, I’ve been asking myself: What will you do moving forward? How will you live your life? What changes will you make? Her loss has forced me to reflect on the darker moments of my life—particularly 2018, a year that tested me in ways I wasn’t prepared for.

Back then, I felt like a failure as I navigated the end of a significant relationship. My separation left me questioning everything: my decisions, my worth, and my ability to move forward. I remember the weight of those emotions, the overwhelming sense that life hadn’t gone as planned. It was one of the darkest seasons of my life, much like what I’m feeling now.

Losing Rasheena has brought all those feelings back—the heartbreak, the self-doubt, and the questions. But it’s also reminding me of the strength I discovered in myself during that time. In 2018, I eventually learned to start over and embrace the idea that failure doesn’t define me. It was a process of growth, and while I’m still figuring out what moving forward looks like now, I know that healing is possible.

Her loss, like my separation, has become a turning point—a moment to reflect, to grow, and to decide how I want to live moving forward.