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# Growing Around the Wound
- URL: https://stillrollingoutdoors.com/growing-around-the-wound/
- Published: 2025-08-14T22:54:38.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-27T17:16:22.000Z
- Description: Still alive. Still reaching for the sun.
- Author: S. Rolling
- Tags: Backtrails & Fragments, Capacity & Pacing

Not all things heal clean.

Wounds stay.  
Some change shape.  
Some become terrain.

I chased a cure  
like it was the only way forward.

Healing was a math problem,  
and I was always missing  
the right formula.

What I wanted was to become  
the person I was before.  
A body that didn't ration  
every step.

That person is gone.

And I punished  
the version that lives.

I chased the cure.  
The expectations didn't fit.

I didn't need to be cured.

I needed to be real.

I saw a tree split by lightning,  
hollow at the center.

Still alive.  
Leafing.  
Reaching for the sun.

Not healed over.

Grown around the damage.

That's what I want now.

To grow around it.  
To choose expansion.

Space for softness.  
For slowness.  
For small joys.

Pain is real.

So is life.

Both can be true.

Like that tree,  
I still stretch toward the light.

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*\* peer reflections:* [*not medical or therapy advice.*](https://stillrollingoutdoors.com/author-note/) *\**

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