When Holding On Looks Like Letting Go

For seven years, my Facebook profile picture has been the same: me and my dad.
My cover photo has been the same too—a rainbow that appeared as he crossed from earth into heaven.

And for a long time, I couldn’t change them.

Not because I didn’t want to move forward… but because I was afraid of what moving forward meant.

Somewhere deep in my heart lived this quiet, unspoken belief:
If I stayed the same, maybe he’d still recognize me.
If heaven had windows, if he could glance back, I wanted him to see the daughter he left behind—not someone altered by grief, time, or growth.

So I stayed frozen in that moment.

But here’s the truth I’m finally learning to say out loud:
That girl doesn’t exist anymore.
She didn’t disappear—she was transformed.

The day I lost my dad, I lost her too.

And staying in that limbo space—honoring him by refusing to change—has slowly begun to feel less like devotion and more like quiet self-erasure.

Parkside Papery was never about pretending nothing hurts.
It was created in the tension between remembering and becoming.

Every photograph I take.
Every torn edge of paper.
Every soft color and whispered word.

They all live in that sacred space where grief meets growth.

I’m realizing now that honoring my dad doesn’t mean staying who I was when he left.
It means living as the woman he helped shape.
It means carrying his love forward, not locking it in place.

So as the new year begins, I’m doing something small—but monumental for me.
I’m changing my profile picture.
I’m changing my cover photo.

Not because I’m letting go of him.
But because I’m finally letting myself move.

The rainbow still matters.
That moment still matters.
He still matters.

But so does who I’m becoming.

And Parkside Papery will always be a place where memory is honored without requiring us to remain unchanged—where beauty holds both sorrow and hope in the same frame.

If you’re standing in a place where change feels like betrayal, I see you.
Sometimes moving forward isn’t forgetting.

Sometimes it’s the bravest way of remembering.

🤍