1. The aftermath in the heart of the storm
There was no peace. No closure. No gentle processing. Only a storm that kept raging, in ever new forms. From procedure to procedure, from demand to counter-demand, from hope to frustration.
My mind understood what was at stake. But my body was carrying something else: exhaustion. A deep, cellular fatigue that couldn’t be explained by the facts, but made perfect sense after years of inner battle.
I was trapped between trying to preserve Turbo — out of loyalty, out of responsibility, perhaps still out of a last flicker of hope — and the growing realization that it was draining me. So I began to shift. Toward liquidation. Not because I wanted to give up, but because I needed to get out of the storm. Because I felt that this fight was costing me something I could no longer afford to lose: myself.
And just when I thought the dust might settle, the next battleground emerged: the properties. A fresh wave of tension, of having to fight once more. For dignity. For fairness. And somewhere deep down… for recognition.
2. Fighting for something already gone
The negotiations to take over the properties. The conversations that went nowhere. The calculations. The schedules. The mental contortions to keep it all functioning.
I kept going, powered by a fire I barely felt. Fighting for something that still existed on paper, but was long dead inside me. And deep down, I knew I was sidelining myself again. Not acting from desire, but from guilt. Or more precisely: from a sense of duty I had long outgrown.
3. A different kind of loss
What made it so confusing was this: the loss wasn’t mine. It wasn’t my dream. Not a home I had built. Not a structure that fit me. And yet, it felt like failure. Like I was breaking something irreversible. Like I was letting down a promise I never actually made — but had been carrying anyway.
I remember asking myself:
“Am I just chasing a happiness that doesn’t exist?”
Maybe there is no new beginning. Maybe I just need to accept the old. To settle. To live with what is. Without longing. Without hope.
And for a moment, I believed that. That I was too much. Too idealistic. Too sensitive. That I should just be content with what “works,” even if it didn’t match who I truly was.
4. The turning point
It came slowly. Not as insight, but as a truth that started to show itself. In the body. In the breath. In the quiet between two actions.
I felt: this isn’t mine.
This whole fight — holding on, holding up, forgetting myself — is an old script.
I’m playing a role I no longer am.
And the most painful part: I already knew. For a while. And yet I kept going.
I was sidelining myself again. Just like before. Just like always. And suddenly, I saw the pattern. Not as a thought error, but as a survival reflex. A part of me believed: if I don’t save this, I won’t exist.
5. Maté’s voice on the sidelines
Later, I reread parts of Gabor Maté’s work. He wrote:
“You don’t hold on to the other. You hold on to who you had to become in order to be loved.”
And that line… it cut through all the narratives.
I wasn’t holding on to Turbo. Or the property. Or the structure. I was holding on to the child in me who thought: if I succeed, they’ll see me. If I hold this, I matter.
And that realization opened something. Not in anger. But in softness. A deep grief for all the times I believed I had to earn the right to be.
6. The decision
That same day, my wife told me she wasn’t given the space to explore, with my son, whether they could continue Turbo without me. Something I had assumed she either didn’t want or couldn’t face. But in that moment, I felt: I need to trust her.
And that realization — that this might be the very solution to everything I’d been fighting for, without losing myself — brought peace. It was the answer my system had been searching for all along. And I even felt: I want to support her in this. Not out of sacrifice, but from a new place. Because I know it’s right. For her. For him. And also for me.
The real clarity didn’t come in a conversation, or a file, or a formal step. It came in the night. When I couldn’t sleep. When my mind kept spinning through plans and scenarios and rescue strategies. And suddenly I felt:
I wasn’t fighting for my future.
I was fighting for someone else’s past.
I thought I was still trying to fix something. To hold something. To save something. But what I was really doing — was forgetting myself. Again.
And in that nighttime clarity, a sentence came to me:
“If I drop everything that isn’t mine, very little remains.
And that little — is finally mine.”
I stopped. Not because it was solved. But because I understood: this wasn’t my fight. And in that letting go, I didn’t feel empty — I felt space. Finally.
I looked at the building. At everything I had tried to save. And I whispered:
“I let it go. Not because I failed. But because it wasn’t mine.”
And after that — silence. And in that silence: myself.
Reflection on the loss that wasn’t mine
1. What I only saw clearly afterward
Once the storm quieted — or rather, once I stopped trying to resist it — I began to understand. The battle I had been fighting wasn’t for a company, a project, or a structure. It was for a self-image. An identity I had built, carried, defended. And that no longer matched who I had become.
I had equated stopping with failure. But what I saw was something else entirely: release. It wasn’t the project I had to let go of — it was a former way of existing. And in that letting go, something truer began to breathe in me. Not through thoughts, but through feeling.
2. Psychological perspective
This process made several deep-rooted patterns visible:
- The rescuer — I allowed myself to matter only when I was solving something for someone else.
- Attachment loyalty — I stayed loyal to what no longer fed me, out of fear of betraying or abandoning it.
- Self-erasure — I put others first, believing I had to earn love through sacrifice.
These aren’t flaws — they’re echoes of the past. They were formed in environments where safety was linked to usefulness and love was conditional. But today, these patterns limit more than they protect.
Choosing to stop isn’t giving up. It’s a quiet affirmation: I don’t have to disappear to belong. I don’t have to carry what isn’t mine in order to feel worthy.
3. Spiritual reflection
Across spiritual traditions, the experience of loss and stripping down is often described as sacred ground:
- In Christianity, it’s the letting go of the “old self” in order to be reborn in truth.
- In Buddhism, non-attachment is the path to ending suffering.
- In Sufism, it’s the return to the Source — the release of the illusion of control.
- In Judaism, teshuvah means returning to your essence — to who you truly are.
What these paths have in common is the insight that loss isn’t an end — it’s an opening. A threshold. A return. And what remains is not absence, but essence.
I experienced it that way. Not as a belief, but as deep stillness. As if, by no longer fighting, I fell into something that had held me all along. Without knowing. Without needing to deserve it.
4. Maybe you know this too…
Maybe you’re carrying something that isn’t yours. Maybe you too thought that letting go meant losing. But maybe — it’s returning.
A reminder that life doesn’t ask you to endure, but to be true. Not to control, but to trust. And that where you think you’re about to fall apart, you might actually be finding your way home.
Whatever is not yours — you can set it down. And whatever remains, may be small — but it will finally be yours.