Becoming / Returning

I didn't want a comeback.
What I wanted desperately was to return to myself.
The self that existed before illness hijacked my days.
Before survival became my full-time job.

Out here, I remembered. Each footfall on damp soil.
Each breath that hurt but came anyway.
It reminded me I was still a person, not a project.
Not a diagnosis.

The wild doesn't require recovery. It only requires presence.

And in that presence, I started becoming again.
Becoming soft where I'd gone numb.
Becoming willing to feel.
Becoming honest about how hard it all was.

But it wasn't new. It was a return.
To the self before shame. To the body before betrayal.
To the life that still lives beneath all this pain.

I didn't come out here to get better.
I came to remember that I still am.

If you arrived here from another part of the blog, there's a longer story arc behind this post:

→ Previous: 1.7 - Grief Meets Grace
→ Next: 1.9 - Growing Around the Wound
← Full Arc: Still Rolling Out

* peer reflections: not medical or therapy advice. *