the woman i was would not recognize me

there is a version of me who would not recognize the life i am living now.

and sometimes i think about her.

i think about the woman who tried so fucking hard to keep everything together. who confused endurance with loyalty. who thought being good meant being accommodating. who could find a reason to forgive almost anything as long as it meant she didn't have to admit that something she loved was over.

she thought losing people meant she had failed them.

she thought changing her mind made her inconsistent.

she thought boundaries were cruel.

she thought choosing herself would make her selfish.

she thought starting over was the worst thing that could happen to her.

and god, i wish i could sit beside her for five minutes.

i wouldn't tell her what was coming.

i wouldn't tell her how many things were going to break.

i wouldn't tell her about the rooms she'd cry in, the people she'd outgrow, the versions of forever that wouldn't make it to forever.

i wouldn't tell her that one day she would look down at her own body and barely recognize that either.

i think i'd just hold her hand.

because she doesn't need another warning.

she needs to know that the ending isn't the end.

that there is a life waiting for her on the other side of everything she is terrified to lose.

and it isn't perfect.

but it is hers.

that is the part nobody tells you about becoming.

sometimes it is fucking devastating.

sometimes growth looks less like blooming and more like watching everything you once used to define yourself burn to the ground.

the marriage.
the body.
the friendships.
the plans.
the timelines.
the idea of who you thought you were supposed to be.

and then one morning you realize you are standing in the ashes and you aren't asking how to rebuild the old life anymore.

you don't want it back.

not because it wasn't real.
not because there weren't beautiful things there.
not because you don't grieve it sometimes.

but because you finally understand that grief and gratitude can occupy the same body.

i can miss her and never want to be her again.

i can mourn what happened to me and still be wildly fucking grateful for who came out of it.

i can love things that ended.

i can forgive people i no longer allow access to me.

i can be thankful for a chapter and still refuse to reread it.

i can look at a life that went nothing like i planned and whisper,

thank god.

thank god i didn't get everything i begged for.

thank god some doors closed while my hands were still wrapped around the handle.

thank god i became too big for rooms i once prayed would keep me.

thank god i learned that peace can feel boring when you've spent your whole life mistaking chaos for love.

thank god i stopped believing that suffering was proof of devotion.

thank god i finally understood that i do not have to bleed to prove something mattered.

maybe that's what healing actually is.

not forgetting.

not becoming untouched.

not tying a pretty little bow around the worst things that ever happened to you and calling them lessons.

maybe healing is simply reaching the point where your past no longer gets to negotiate your future.

i am still soft.

probably softer, actually.

but softness feels different now.

it has teeth.

it says no.

it leaves.

it rests.

it changes its mind.

it protects what it loves.

it doesn't audition for belonging.

it doesn't beg to be understood.

it knows that being deeply loving and deeply boundaried were never opposites.

and maybe soft girls really do burn slow.

maybe we spend years quietly setting fire to every version of ourselves we created just to survive.

until eventually there is nothing left to perform.

nothing left to prove.

nothing left to save except ourselves.

and from there

we begin.