Book for finding your way back to yourself and transition phase, not feeling you belong anywhere currently

Hey you guys,

I’m looking for a book-something light in the hands but deep in the heart. The kind you can’t put down. The kind that quietly rearranges something inside you.

I used to be an ardent reader once. Books were places I lived in. Somewhere along the way, life filled up all the empty corners where stories used to sit. I hustled, worked, pushed forward, and I still do. My job now demands long days and longer nights, and I’ve promised myself this might be the last time I give this much of myself to a startup.

Last year was… unkind.

It took things from me and gave me lessons in return. The kind no one volunteers to learn.

My dog passed away and with him a kind of unconditional love that felt permanent.

I lost two best friends, the kind you think will grow old with you.

I quit my job that looked perfect on paper but slowly drained me.

I lost money, stability, certainty.

I got broken up with in a relationship where I loved so deeply I forgot the sound of my own voice inside my head.

I thought this would be the year of a happy ending. Instead it became a year of unraveling.

I hurt my back.

I quit.

I broke.

I moved back home.

I took a trip but my grief was used against me for being ‘sad’ and not fun, when I had told him already I will not be fun considering my mental health. He said he’ll feel diff about the relationship so I ended up going with him considering we were in a tough spot already. But I think it was selfish of him to say that and if he actually understood what I was going through, he wouldn’t have.

And home isn’t really home anymore.

It’s a small town where the roads aren’t safe for long walks, so I pace my terrace instead and sit with my cats and the evening sky. I’ve been here three months, working fourteen-hour days, weekends included. Remote work means freedom in theory, but lately it feels more like a quiet kind of confinement.

Some days I miss movement. Walking, conversations with strangers, cafe corners, long walks, bad music playing in the background of good memories.

I used to live alone in a small house I loved, tiny but mine. It held laughter and dinners and friendships and love. Now the memories feel tangled with endings, and I don’t know if I want to return to that city again. I have people there I love deeply, but sometimes you outgrow places before you understand why.

Right now I exist somewhere in between.

Not where I was.

Not yet where I’m going.

It’s an uncomfortable place, this feeling of not belonging anywhere entirely while you rebuild yourself piece by piece. But I’m learning things about myself that only storms teach. And I do believe stubbornly, that it always gets better.

I’m healing. Slowly, imperfectly, honestly.

I want to feel creative again. I want to write and make things and listen to music the way I used to. Somewhere along the way that version of me blurred out, and I’d like to meet her again.

So I’m looking for a book.

One that might make me smile.

Or cry.

Or feel less alone.

Maybe something about finding your way back to yourself.

I loved Tuesdays with Morrie when I was 22. It stayed with me. I’d love recommendations that linger like that ,gentle but meaningful stories.

And maybe, just maybe, a book for this strange in-between season where you’re moving forward, but still feeling the echoes of where you’ve been.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

It always gets better. I believe that.