Growing Around the Wound

Not all things heal clean.
Some wounds stay.
Some change shape.
Some become terrain.

I spent years trying to make the pain disappear,
like healing was a math problem
and I was just missing the right formula.

I chased cure like it was the only way out.
Like getting better meant returning to the person I was before—
the one whose body didn't ration energy,
who could hike without calculating every step.

But that person is gone.
And I kept punishing this version for not being her.

Liberation isn't found in a cure.
It lives in reclaiming pace, space, sovereignty.

I stopped chasing the idea of cure when
I realized it was just another way of buying
into expectations that didn't fit my reality.

I didn't need to be cured.
I needed to be real.

Real is where liberation lives.

Then I saw a tree split by lightning.
Hollow at the center.
Still alive.
Still leafing.
Still reaching for the sun.

It hadn't healed over.
It had grown around the damage.

The body keeps what happened.
It also keeps adapting.

That's what I want now.
To grow around it.
To adapt without abandoning myself.
To stop chasing who I was.
Start choosing expansion.

I found space for softness, slowness, small joys.

My pain is real.
So is my life.
Both can be true.

I may never be whole the way I was.
But I'm still alive in this body.
And like that tree, I can still stretch toward light.

I may never be cured.
But I can be free.

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*Peer reflection, not therapy advice. Your healing journey is uniquely yours.*