I Don’t Need to Be Unhurt to Be Better

Dear Delyara, I think I misunderstood healing for a long time. I thought it meant the hurt should stop mattering. That one day I would speak about old pain with complete neutrality, as if enough growth would erase the emotional weather around certain memories. It hasn’t happened that way. What has happened is this: the pain no longer owns the whole room. It still exists, but it doesn’t decide everything anymore. It is no longer the center of every story I tell myself about who I am. That feels like healing to me.