The lifeboat lesson

By Gia Rocca

It’s not your fault. 

You couldn’t have saved them, because they weren’t ready to save themselves.

I used to believe love meant saving people, even when it cost me pieces of myself. I always thought I could pull someone out of their drowning if I just tried hard enough.

My dad was the first person I tried to save.

13-year-old me believed if I stayed close enough, he would get better. 15-year-old me fought harder, argued, pleaded- thinking anger could fix what love couldn’t. 17- year-old me stood at his casket and spoke words that felt like they belonged to someone else.

I kept trying to explain him in ways that made it easier to carry.

Addiction.

Mental health.

Circumstances.

Anything that made it feel like less of a loss and more like something I could understand.

But understanding didn’t stop the guilt.

Therapy is where everything started to change. That’s where I learned the lifeboat lesson. I can care about someone without jumping into the water with them and drowning too.

I had been doing exactly that for years without realizing it.

My dad’s death wasn’t something I caused. It wasn’t my mother’s fault or my sibling’s fault. Or mine.

But I carried it like it was mine anyway.

Grief doesn’t really leave. It just changes shape. Sometimes it’s anger. Sometimes it’s numbness. Sometimes it’s guilt that shows up when I least expect it.

I used to think numbness meant I was healing.

Now, I know it just meant I wasn’t ready to feel it yet.

I still think about that lifeboat. I’m still there, still carrying, still hoping. But, I’m not losing myself in it anymore.

I used to think love meant saving someone no matter what it did to me. Now, I think love means knowing when to step back.

It was never my fault that I couldn’t save him. It isn’t my fault that I can’t save everyone.

And I’m finally starting to believe that peace isn’t something I have to earn.

I spent so long thinking if I just did everything right, I could fix what was already breaking. That mindset followed me into friendships, relationships and every situation where someone else was struggling.

I became the person who listened too much and carried too much and called it love.

But it wasn’t love when it was destroying me.

Therapy forced me to see that clearly. No amount of effort can change someone who doesn’t want to change. No amount of love can save someone who isn’t reaching back.

That truth hurt more than anything else I’ve had to accept. Because it meant letting go of the version of myself that believed that I could fix everything.

I still miss him. I still wish things were different. but I don’t blame myself anymore for not being enough.

When I think about him now, I try not to only see the loss. I try to see what I learned from it instead.

I learned that love isn’t control. I learned that caring doesn’t mean carrying everything. I learned that letting go doesn’t mean I stopped loving someone. And I learned that I’m allowed to exist outside of grief. That I am allowed to heal without feeling guilty about it.

It still comes back sometimes.

The guilt, the what ifs, the memories I can’t change. But now, I don’t stay there as long. I let it pass through instead of letting it define me.

I’m still learning how to live with all of this. Still learning how to love people without losing myself in them.

And slowly I am learning that I do not have to earn peace.

Peace doesn’t ask for perfection. It doesn’t require me to have saved everyone I loved. It only asks me to stop blaming myself for things I could never control. And that is what I am finally learning to do.

I used to think love meant jumping into every lifeboat I saw someone drowning in. I don’t believe that anymore. I can care from the edge without falling in. I can love without disappearing. I can finally let go of the belief that saving everyone else is the only way to save myself.