I stopped asking life to return me to who I was before

Dear Delyara, For a long time, I measured healing by resemblance. Do I feel like I used to? Am I getting back? Is the old version of me returning? And because life had already altered me in visible and invisible ways, that measurement kept making my actual self feel like a disappointing replacement for the original. I don’t want to keep doing that. The woman I am now deserves better than comparison. She deserves care. So I am trying to build a life around what she needs rather than what I wish had never been lost. More softness. More truth. Better limits. Less romanticising of endurance. Less self-punishment disguised as discipline. That feels like healing now. Not reversal. Kindness toward the changed self.