Joyful Ruins

Coming to terms with how much pain and hurt I have stored in my body is not easy.

I’ve carried the wounds since I was 6.

6 to 31, years of reinforcement, years of hiding, years of surviving…. honestly, years of dismissal, disbelieving that my wounds needed caring, healing, or validation.

Instead, praying them away, sucking it up, bottling it inside, gaslighting myself, and focusing solely on others.

Perhaps if I focus on loving others through their pain, my pain would lessen. But that was a very temporary relief, one that usually made me feel more alone and hurt because no one ever seemed to return that same love to me.

So I’ve placed a band aid on a deep open wound for decades.

And mold exposed my body to the reality of my woundedness.

My body has been speaking pain ever since and now my whole self has shouted for me to listen and face the reality of my wounds.

It’s as though I’ve been very sick for 15 years but I am only now coming to terms with that truth.

And now I face the long and hard treatment of this sickness.

I wrote the above a couple of months ago. And the years of pain are coming out in different ways now, through tears, and tension, and more. It’s easy to forget to heal. So easy to keep going in survival mode and ignore what your body or heart says.

But I want to be committed to this work.