Meaning is something I’ve always lived with, the way some people live with faith. It lit everything I touched – motherhood, physics, rainstorms, video games, coffee, creativity. When I lost it, everything dimmed. This is the story of where it went, how grief hollowed the world out, and the unexpected moment it flickered back to life. I’ve included photos of the macrame I’ve made recently – the things I kept creating while desperately searching for meaning in the making.

I’ve Always Found Meaning in Everything

For a long time, I thought the lack of meaning in my life was depression. That’s the only time in the past where I’ve ever lost my sense of meaning, but previously it was always temporary.

I’ve always been someone who finds meaning in everything: in raising my son, in video games, in my many hobbies, in learning about physics, in feeling connected to the universe, even in every single item in my flat. Meaning has always been my constant companion. It’s a huge part of who I am, why I’ve done anything in my life, and it’s one of the parts of my identity I love the most.

Even my struggles held meaning. If I’m Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill, then meaning is what makes the pushing possible. When the rock has meaning, I don’t need to ask why I’m pushing it or whether I deserve to push it. Pushing it is the point. I used my struggles to help other people push their rocks too, and that was enough reason to keep going.
There was always meaning in that.

But when my best friend WeeGee died, and when my son became a more independent adult, I lost all of my meaning. The rock didn’t just roll away – it rolled over me. I didn’t give up; I just let go, because suddenly the rock didn’t mean anything at all. And without meaning, I ended up relapsing after twelve years of pushing the recovery rock up the hill.

When my son broke his glasses, something in me flickered back on. For 24 hours, I recognised myself again. I felt like the person who used to feel meaning in everything. And now I’m grieving it. I’m grieving the me who used to be full of meaning.

I wrote about my son’s glasses breaking in a recent post. I felt it was important, because in that moment I felt something I hadn’t felt in years: meaning.

The Broken Glasses of Meaning

When the rain was splashing down on me as I walked on a mission to get my sons glasses fixed, I thought about the rain cycle. Rain always reminds me that I’m standing on a planet with its own system, floating in space, and that the odds of being an intelligent life form – on this planet, in this weather, with this body – are, as far as the universe has shown us, unbelievably small.
It felt miraculous.

The puddles rippling under my feet, the way I splashed just enough to send rain up the backs of my legs – it mesmerised me. And now that I’m 42, an age WeeGee never got to see, it made me appreciate being alive to feel this even more. I found meaning in the rain, in the planet, in helping my son with his glasses, in living in Wales, in being alive at all.

But the next day, it was gone.

I was back to the monotony of daily life that has become so ordinary and so stripped of meaning. My life has never been extraordinary – I don’t think anyone’s is, especially when you live with conditions that limit the way you can live it. But I used to find meaning in the ordinary. Now it feels empty. It’s meal plans. Eating the same foods every day. Doing the same tasks, watching the same shows, completing things just to say I did something.

It’s not for lack of trying.
I’ve tried visiting all the places that used to give me meaning: video games, art, macrame, researching loop quantum gravity, plushies. But they don’t bring anything back. Instead of adding meaning, they add to the monotony. They’re things I now do so I can prove I did something instead of nothing.

I can’t rely on my son breaking his glasses every week to bring me meaning, and I shouldn’t ever rely on him to give my life meaning. I can’t get WeeGee back or replace her, and I’ve spent years trying to find meaning elsewhere. I’ve made so much macrame, but felt nothing. I feel completely unmoored.

Every time I visit one of my old islands – like the macrame island I’ve been on recently, searching endlessly for meaning – it doesn’t feel like home anymore. It’s gone dark. It feels empty. Meaning does not live there anymore. It feels like I’m faking everything, knowing this meant something to me once, but now it doesn’t.

I don’t know how to find meaning again. But my son’s broken glasses reminded me of something important: The version of me who felt meaning in everything is still in here somewhere.

The Meaning of Recovery

I thought recovery would give me meaning. In the beginning, it did.
I had to gain weight, I had to focus all of my energy on it. It became a 24/7 job of buying more food, changing meal plans by myself, challenging fears, and doing endless research into what was best for me, my conditions, and my age. I read medical journals, experimented with creatine, protein, slow weight gain, joint rehab – everything.

But now that I’m pretty stable – over my lower set point and finally eating the right balance of foods so no longer overwhelmed by constant food thoughts – recovery has ripped open the real reason I relapsed in the first place.

I don’t know how to keep pushing this rock up the hill when it doesn’t have meaning.
I don’t know why I’m recovering, or what it’s for. I’m doing it only because a part of me knows it’s the right thing to do. But it doesn’t feel meaningful. It just exposes why I lost meaning to begin with, and why I let go of the rock in the first place.

Last time, thirteen years ago, WeeGee and I recovered together. Pushing my rock up the hill was partly for her. She was ahead of me in recovery, and I loved her so much that I felt I had to keep pushing – not to trigger her, not to put her in the position of dealing with a relapse when she was doing well. She gave my rock meaning.

I pushed it so I could mirror back to her that recovery was possible, even with what she used to call a “broken brain,” because mine was broken too, and I was still pushing. My love for her, and her love for me, made the rock lighter. It gave the whole struggle a purpose.

My grief is in a much better place than it was. I can think of her fondly. I can remember things like her severe hatred of mushrooms and laugh instead of cry. I can feel thankful we were friends at all, instead of spiralling when I see a Christmas sandwich. But I’m still grieving her – and the holes she left in my life, and lately, the giant gaping hole she left in me.

Some of my meaning seemed to die with her.

And it’s hard to push this recovery rock when I don’t feel any meaning in pushing it. I eat now. I’m more stable. I’m doing “the right thing.”

But what for? That question has always mattered to me.

The Meaning of my Identity

I don’t know who I am without meaning. And I’m so grateful I felt it again – just for a moment – when my son’s glasses broke. It gave me hope that it’s still possible, that I’m still in there somewhere.

I did tell him the cliff-notes version of all this. Not to make him responsible, but to say:
“This is why I’ve been quiet, and none of this is on you, but for some reason your broken glasses gave me meaning.”
And he said, “I know what’ll give you meaning then – do my hair for me, it needs cutting.”
So today, I cut his hair.

But while trimming it and laughing at his reasoning for me cutting his hair, I couldn’t stop thinking about all of this – about who I am now.

I really don’t know who I am
since I stopped being a 24/7 mother to a younger child
since I lost WeeGee
since I entered recovery this time.

Maybe trying to force meaning with macrame isn’t working. (My bears do look magnificent, though.) Maybe this is one of the few areas where I need to return to what I’ve always used when life is out of my control: the Aaron Burr school of “Wait for it.”
Maybe I have to just… wait for it to come back.

I really don’t know how I’ve got this far in recovery without meaning. How I’m still doing it. Meaning was how I did anything at all – why I was a good mum even when I was mentally unwell, why I learned so many crafts, why I know so much about physics, why I recovered the first time. This time, I’ve just been going through the motions, with no drive behind it whatsoever.

Maybe now that my grief for WeeGee is in a healthier place, I need to grieve me too – the version of myself who died when she did.
Maybe that’s what will bring meaning back into my life.
Maybe losing meaning is a stage of grief, or I’m stuck in the depression phase of grief currently.

But I have to pass through it so I can live the rest of my 40’s for her, because she didn’t get to.
I just really hope meaning returns, because life is really difficult when meaning is hard to find, and the only respite is fleeting.

The song for this post, had to be “Wait for it”.