Healing in Real Time
Healing While the World Keeps Going
The hardest thing about healing is that you have to do it in real time.
The world does not stop for you.
The world does not care what you're going through.
The world just keeps going.
Relentlessly.
It feels like just as you’re starting to heal, something comes along and picks at your wounds until they’re open and bleeding again.
It’s messy.
It hurts.
And if you’re like me, it’s a slow process.
I feel like I’m moving at a snail’s pace, and every time I heal a piece, another wound is torn open.
I lose momentum.
I retreat to my shell.
If you’re like me, healing in real time means that echoes of your past will ricochet through your brain daily.
You’ll see flashes of it in everything you do. You’ll feel it. Sometimes those flashes can be clarifying and healing.
Other times, devastating.
I’ve been emotionally raw lately because I’ve been working through my history in excruciating detail,
clearing all the skeletons out of my closet, healing the pieces of me that I’ve kept locked away for years.
So I’m walking around everyday, feeling completely raw and exposed, and all the while I’m expected to go to work.
Do chores. Take care of the kids. Spend time with my partner.
Smile and be pleasant, when my heart is in pieces and I’m running out of tape.
When Old Wounds Show Up in New Places
It’s in this emotional landscape that I have been going to work.
The show must go on; the bills must get paid.
And there’s an incident that has been unfolding over the course of a few months that has
echoed old feelings of not being heard, not being believed, not being valued.
It reminds me of how I felt then: I don’t matter.
The situation at work, while irritating, does not deserve this much mental real estate; my plate is full enough as is.
It’s just an echo of those old feelings.
But because I’m still knee-deep in processing them, they’re bleeding into the present and making it hard to see things clearly.
I spent a few days feeling ashamed for letting something at work get to me.
But the fact is, it’s not just about work.
The reaction is proportional to the wound, not the present circumstance.
It’s about every time I wasn’t believed.
Every time my pain was invisible.
Every time the adults in the room told me the fire wasn’t real because
they couldn’t feel the heat.
But I notice. I’ve always noticed.
And the deafening silence has always told me: I don’t matter
You’re Not Broken, You’re Healing Out Loud
This work is invisible.
No one claps when you rewrite a belief that was welded into you as a child.
No one cheers when you show up bleeding and still manage to take out the trash.
But I see it. I know what that kind of courage costs.
You’re not lazy. You’re not too sensitive.
You’re doing noisy, messy work in a society that demands you heal quietly and cleanly.
And you’re doing it in real time.
That’s not weakness. That’s a miracle.
