Not Quite Ever: When the World Reflects as a Mirror

Inheritance: The Pattern Beneath the Ache

The Not Quite Ever theme has echoed through my entire life. I always had a sense of it—but only now, after years of stumbling toward clarity, do I see it fully. In short, it points to allowing. More specifically, the difficulty of allowing. Of receiving.

 

I came by it honestly.

 

I didn’t have a bad childhood. I didn’t have bad parents. They cared for us, clothed us, took us to doctors and dentists. They brought us from Argentina to Canada so we could have a better life. That took courage.

 

My parents were mild-mannered, in many ways quite timid. They did the best they could with what they had. There was gentleness in them. A little dry humor, some creativity. A genuine desire to keep their children safe and well fed. They did good.

 

Then why is the world still mirroring this ache?

 

Because—though I was cared for physically—there were holes. Not just holes, a void. An absence of voice. I didn’t even know I could speak, let alone that I had something to say. Clarity was never offered. Vagueness was the atmosphere, and it became the air I learned to breathe.

 

Sometimes that vagueness translated into the withholding of basic needs. My mother followed popular psychology of the day—specifically, the belief that you shouldn’t go to your baby in the middle of the night. Ferberize them, they said. Let them cry it out. Even if the baby is hungry.

 

How did I know I was Ferberized? My mother didn’t tell me.
I felt it.

 

It crashed in on me in my late twenties, when a young mother moved into the apartment above mine. Every night her parties began at midnight. I could hear the baby crying. I was trapped in the room below.

That’s when I began waking in the night with severe anxiety.

In some strange way, that baby was my mirror—and I was hers.

 

Years later, my mother would tell me—with real sorrow—that she did, in fact, let me cry it out. She carries the weight of that choice. But for me, it was the beginning of the pattern: the message that “it’s not coming.”

Cry for it. Long for it. Hunger for it. But it isn’t coming.

 

Then came step two: my father.

 

A good man. Wickedly funny. But absent. Not physically, but emotionally.

 

He was there, but not there. He didn’t share. Didn’t speak. Didn’t join us. He had his world, and we had ours. There were no reassurances, no I’m proud of you, no I see you. Not that I can remember.

 

When I hit puberty, the walls closed in. I couldn’t survive the void anymore. The ache wasn’t from what was said—but from what was never said. From the complete absence of presence.

 

He watched, but never engaged.

I was being watched, but not seen.
Watched, but not invited.
Watched, but not chosen.

 

He finally did show up—years later—after living decades alone. But by then, the damage had been done.

 

When I was thirteen, I begged my mother to ask him to leave. She did. He left.

And oh—the guilt.
And oh—the freedom.
I could finally breathe again.

 

But the pattern had already taken root. And it played out over and over in my life—especially in my almost relationships. The ones where the man just never fully showed up.

 

There was a long stretch of time when I couldn’t be with anyone. I suffered anxiety attacks so severe, they’d form perfectly round white welts on my face. They’d appear out of nowhere, and disappear just as suddenly.

 

I’ve now come to realize: I wasn’t just longing for love.
I was longing for arrival.

 

And for most of my life, I lived just outside of it.
Always waiting in the wings, never fully stepping onto the stage.

When the Ache Finds a Pen

There is one tremendous luxury writing has always given me: full expression.
A place to let it out. To shape the formless ache into something that makes sense.
It doesn’t erase the pain, but it transmutes it—gently, slowly—into something kinder. Something I can sit with.

 

Last night was one of those nights.

 

It was late. I couldn’t sleep. My thoughts were loud.
So, I turned to what I know: I wrote.

 

The emotions were too much to contain. And writing—especially when I’m tender—is more than expression. It’s revelation. Higher wisdom flows through the characters I’ve created. Characters who, in truth, are different facets of myself.
Especially when the ache is sharp.

 

There’s something sacred about writing while raw. You don’t plan or polish. You just follow—and in that current, truth arrives.

The Mirror of Fiction: Alexandra and Jules

I’m working on my next book series, Bridge of Incidents, inspired by the teachings of Neville Goddard. He beautifully illustrated how life presents us with experiences, disruptions, and unlikely gifts—each one a bridge to where we are meant to go. We can cross that bridge and allow life to unfold through us, or we can retreat and call ourselves victims of circumstance.

 

In my upcoming novel, Too Many a Suitor, we meet Miss Alexandra Montgomery, a woman in the midst of such a crossing. Her journey: from lost to found, from fractured to whole. On her path she encounters Miss Jules Celestine—a sage, a mirror, a quiet force of wisdom. And through Jules, my own voice of truth emerges.

 

Not Quite Ever – and Too Many a Suitor

 

In the novel, Too Many a Suitor, there is a moment when Alexandra becomes utterly undone:

 

Alexandra steadied herself, her hand to the back of the chair. The emotions came with such force that she knocked the glass from the old nesting table. Burying her face in her hands, the flood came. She folded into the chair, heavy tears spilling forth—tears born of a breath held too long, of words trapped in the aching hush of the past.

Jules quietly picked up the fallen glass, placed it back on the table, and bent to the floor before her. She took Alexandra’s hands.

“My darling . . . don’t you see what is happening?”

Through gasps and the broken sound of grief, Alexandra barely managed a word.
“No.”

“You are reaching spring,” Jules said gently. “You’ve begun to thaw.”

“Thaw?”

“Yes, no more winters of the soul. No more wandering the desolate lands of being unseen. You are not simply staring into the mirror—you are learning to walk through it. And now that you see the patterns, you are tuning to choice—to the truest desires of your heart.”

Alexandra looked down at their hands, still held. She lifted the handkerchief Jules had offered and wiped her tears.

“Yes, but I’ve made a dreadful mess of it.”

“Nonsense,” Jules said firmly. “You haven’t made a mess. You’ve stirred your soul and brought it back from sleep. You’re beginning to awaken.”

A trace of laughter escaped.
“If this is the beginning, I should very much hate to know what being fully awake feels like.”

Jules raised a brow. “You’re in for a journey like no other. When you know you are fully awake—and you will—it will be a heaven beyond measure. Because there lies your freedom. No resistance. No separation. No void.”

“Yes?”

“Absolutely. Your life wants to unfold now—not just in glances and wishes, but in keys turned in new locks. In rooms fully your own. In love that includes you.”

“Then why do I feel so very bad?”

“It’s the darkness before the dawn, my dear. The ache is just telling you: you’re at the threshold. And you let the tears come. You can cry in the dark and still be luminous.”

“But what if he doesn’t meet me there?”

“There is never a guarantee. But tell me—do you feel he will?”

“Yes.”

“Then trust that.”

“But what if I’m wrong?”

“If you’re wrong, you’ll heal. But I don’t think you are.”

Alexandra looked at Jules, something shifting in her expression. A wilted leaf newly nourished.

Jules tilted her head gently, trying to capture Alexandra’s gaze.

“Sasha?”

Alexandra didn’t answer, but simply nodded.

“And? You feel seen by him?”

She paused.

“Oh, Jules. You remember how you once asked me to observe the hands of a man? I didn’t understand it at the time. But I began to watch. I looked at them all—the suitors. Some had hands too small for their stature, some thick and calloused, some with impeccable manicures and nothing beneath.”

“And what did you learn?”

“Nothing about the men themselves, but everything about me. That dreadful fellow, the day I finally noticed his hands was when he took me to lunch. His hands were fine enough—well-manicured, but then I saw the line, the spot the sun hadn’t reached. That’s when I knew he was married.”

“Yes, that is unfortunate. Better it be revealed early on and I’m so sorry for the way he accosted you.”

Alexandra remained quiet for a moment, deep in contemplation of that evening when Sasha showed up at the house.

“But the one pair I resisted seeing, the ones I feared most to look at . . . were his.”

“Sasha’s.”

“Yes. I was afraid that if I looked, it might break the spell. Or worse, I might love him too much, perhaps risk my heart if he saw me looking. But when he was teaching me how to make brush strokes, I finally allowed myself to look.”

“And?”

“I saw them.” She rested her hand upon her chest, her voice softening. “They were dry, well-shaped, with a thin trace of oil paint near the cuticles—where the turpentine hadn’t reached. Nothing striking. But they were his.”

She closed her eyes.
“They’re the hands I favor. Not because they are perfect . . . but because they are part of him.”

A long breath, a distant gaze. Her eyes drifted to the front window.

“Yes, they felt like hands I would want to hold—ones I would trust to touch me, to steady me, to take me with them along the journey.”

Then came the rise of melancholy. Jules studied her gently.
“Oh dear.”

“What?”

“Isn’t this precisely what we’ve spoken of—your ‘Not Quite Ever’?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve lived in the ache for so long, it’s the only rhythm your heart knows. But it’s not truth. You’re so close to love, and then you step back—into the familiar ache. It is but a mirror of the illusory truths to which you tether yourself. Do you not see the repetition, the pattern?”

With careful attention, Alexandra began to piece together the truth, her new truth. Then Jules looked lovingly into her eyes and Alexandra knew exactly what she meant.

“You mean my father?”

“Yes—your mother too, for she was taken from you. Here, you have the story of the only life you recognize, the one you know. Just when you have begun to let him in, you shrink back into the one who doesn’t have, to the place where love is perpetually out of reach.”

With a gentle nod, Alexandra looked to her lap, then to Jules. A single tear strayed.

Jules spoke compassionately. “Just a moment ago, I saw it—you knew his love was with you. Then, in fear, you abandoned yourself and let it go.”

Alexandra’s eyes filled again.
“Yes. I had it. Then I lost it.”

“You didn’t lose it. You just detached from the frequency. If you keep doing that, you’ll relegate this love to the imagination. And eventually, you’ll settle for the story that he was only here to help you heal.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I know you. You’ve been surviving by shrinking your wants, calling them too much. But it’s time to surrender to real joy. Let him be here. Not as a guide. As yours.”

The ache tightened in Alexandra’s throat. Her thoughts returned to Sasha. She did love him. She wanted to know everything about him—his pain, his colors, his dreams. Not because he was ideal, but because he was real.

“Look, Alexandra, I know you come by it honestly, but it’s time you surrender. Learn to live in the here and now. It’s time you allow for love to unfold as it will, as it must. The idea that he is not fully here for you. The belief he is simply some sort of ethereal guide in your journey, is what keeps you in separation—distanced from the very things you long for and deserve. It is rather a trick.”

“A trick?”

“Exactly that, a trick born of survival. You’ve not known what it is to be fully loved, to fully love yourself. It is part of the defense for wanting too much, for fear of being too much. It is recoil—the moment when you pull back to ensure your safety, but you are beyond that now, are you not?”

The words formed slowly, but then they came with truth, with knowing.

“Yes, I’m beyond it now,” she whispered. “I see what you mean.”

And then, leaning closer to Jules, she added softly—like a sacred vow: “That night . . . after the dreadful incident . . . I saw his vulnerability. It is the most beautiful part of him—the truest part. Unhidden. Unbidden.”

Jules smiled softly. “And is that not the beginning of something true?”

Alexandra hesitated, then looked straight into her friend’s eyes.

“It is.”

Jules placed her hand softly to Alexandra’s cheek.

“Then hold onto that. And don’t stray from it, you hear?”

“I won’t.”

 

Turning the Mirror Back: Reflection and Invitation

It’s funny how we can go through our entire lives piecing all the parts together—a little knowledge here, a gleam of insight there—and still not arrive at the full narrative. The illusory story.

 

For years, I chose safety. But there can be no true safety until that safety is created within. I watched the pattern appear again and again, but I never fully recognized it. As though I witnessed it only from my mind, unable to reconcile why I existed only in half-presence. Perhaps not to others—but certainly inside.

 

I was living without fully shining, always stopping just short of the prize. The closer I got, the further it seemed to slip. But the reaching hand cannot grasp—not when the heart and the mind believe the dream lives only in the Not Quite Ever. Then the dream itself becomes illusion. Yes, the story of being invisible and unseen is the illusion—but the playing out of it becomes illusion too, folded so tightly into the inner script we forget we are the ones who wrote it.

 

But it’s not over.

 

Now that I hold the full awareness, I can begin to shift the mirror outward and shine it onto the world. I can say: No more almost. I choose full arrival.

 

It’s been a long ache. A wound so deep, I hardly knew it wasn’t my permanent story. But it has not gone to waste—for it is shaping the woman I’m becoming.

 

And now I ask you:

 

Is there somewhere in your past where longing or a cherished dream has been pushed so far to the edges, you’ve stopped entertaining it altogether?
Is there a someday I’ll do that you’ve tucked away, only to feel the weight of its dismissal closing in?

 

What in your life feels out of reach?

 

• Where have you lived just on the threshold?
• Do you recognize the ache of almost?
• What truths might be whispered inside that ache—if you dared to listen?