When the Tower Falls

Sometimes the strongest foundation is the one we build after everything changes.

The Wanderer taught me that I didn't have to know where the road ended. I only had to take the next step.

There are moments in life that divide everything into "before" and "after."

You don't see them coming.

You don't prepare for them.

One day you're making plans, and the next you're standing in the middle of a life you never imagined.

During my Creative Strength Training (CST) class this week, we were exploring archetypes. One of them was called The Tower.

The Tower isn't a building.

It's that moment when everything you believed was certain suddenly changes.

It might be a diagnosis.

The loss of someone you love.

A divorce.

A job you never expected to lose.

Or, in my case, what I thought would be a routine second hip replacement that became an emergency revision surgery, weeks of IV antibiotics, and a healing journey I never saw coming.

As we talked about the Tower, I realized something.

I haven't just been recovering from surgery.

I've been living through a Tower.

The Story I Thought I Was Living

When I scheduled my hip replacement, I already knew how the story was supposed to end. I'd been here before. My first hip replacement was, quite honestly, a breeze. I expected this one to follow the same script.

I'd recover.

I'd get back into my studio.

I'd start teaching again.

I'd travel.

Life would return to normal.

Instead, the story I had written for myself fell apart.

The infection.

Emergency surgery.

Fear.

Uncertainty.

Learning to trust my own instincts when my body kept telling me something wasn't right.

Realizing that healing isn't nearly as predictable as I once believed.

Looking back now, I understand that the surgery wasn't really my Tower.

The Tower was the collapse of certainty.

It was losing the life I thought I was living.

Finding Someone Else in the Rubble

As our class continued, I shared a little of my story. When I finished, another woman quietly began sharing hers. As she spoke, I realized we weren't connecting over our surgeries. We were connecting over what it feels like when life suddenly isn't recognizable anymore.

She had a knee replacement six months ago.

She's still struggling every day.

Her pain became so overwhelming that she developed an addiction to pain medication. Today she's recovering from that addiction, but her pain remains very real.

Our stories were different.

Different surgeries.

Different complications.

Different journeys.

Yet in that moment, we understood one another completely.

Not because of our medical history.

Because we had both lived through a Tower.

That conversation changed something for me.

I realized every one of us will experience a Tower at some point in our lives.

It may never involve a hospital.

Your Tower may be a cancer diagnosis.

The loss of someone you love.

A marriage ending.

The loss of a dream.

A financial crisis.

A betrayal you never saw coming.

The details don't matter.

The feeling does.

The ground beneath you shifts, and suddenly the life you expected no longer exists.

The Companions Who Found Me

What I love about archetypal work is that it doesn't leave us standing in the rubble.

It introduces us to companions for the journey ahead.

After my Tower fell, three of them quietly stepped into my life.

The Seeker asked me a different question.

Not, "Why did this happen to me?"

But, "What is this experience trying to teach me?"

Instead of looking for someone to blame, I began looking for meaning.

The Wanderer reminded me that healing doesn't come with a map.

I remember the first day I made it all the way around the block with my dogs. A month earlier, that simple walk would have seemed impossible.

I wasn't celebrating miles.

I was celebrating one block.

Another day, I spent thirty minutes in my studio. Thirty minutes. Before surgery, I would have laughed if someone had told me that half an hour of creating would feel like such a victory. But that day, it was everything.

Other days success meant taking a nap because my body simply needed rest.

Somewhere along the way, I realized I had been measuring healing by the wrong yardstick. It wasn't about how much I accomplished. It was about learning to honor where I was that day.

Healing wasn't asking me to do more. It was asking me to become more present with where I was.

The Wanderer taught me that I didn't have to know where the road ended.

I only had to take the next step.

Then the Explorer gently whispered the question that stopped me in my tracks.

"Who are you becoming because of this?"

Not, "When will life go back to normal?"

But...

"Who am I becoming?"

That question changed everything.

Because maybe healing was never about getting my old life back.

Maybe it was about discovering the life I couldn't see until the old one fell apart.

Building a Different Foundation

I've realized I don't actually want to rebuild the life I had before.

I want to build something stronger.

A life where I trust my intuition.

A life where my voice matters.

A life where rest is part of healing instead of something I feel guilty about.

A life where strength and vulnerability can exist together.

A Fiber Artist's Perspective

As a fiber artist, I've spent years repairing, layering, stitching, and strengthening cloth. I've learned that sometimes the strongest pieces aren't the ones that have never been torn.

They're the ones that have been lovingly mended, reinforced, and transformed into something even richer than before. The repaired cloth tells a richer story than the untouched one ever could.

Maybe our lives are stitched together the same way.

None of us chooses the moments that change our lives forever.

I didn't choose my Tower.

But I do get to choose what I build in its place.

When Your Tower Falls

If you're standing in the middle of your own Tower today, I hope you'll remember this.

Keep asking the questions.

Keep taking the next step.

Keep exploring who you're becoming.

Maybe your Tower looks nothing like mine.

Maybe no one else even knows you're standing in the rubble.

But if you're there...

You're not alone.

One day, you'll look back and realize that what felt like the end of your story...

was actually the beginning of a stronger one.

Because sometimes the strongest foundation is the one we build after everything changes.

Much Love,

Deb