I let the old ache visit without giving it the whole house

Dear Delyara, That is progress in the form I trust most now. The old ache still knows how to knock sometimes. But it no longer gets to become the whole environment. It can visit. It does not get the keys. I’m grateful for that. More grateful than I can explain well. Because I know what it used to feel like when one old pain could take over the whole emotional architecture of a day. Now it can’t, not in the same way.