When you are healed, you will still need people
You will never be healed, but when you are healed, you will turn towards people, not away. You will develop the capacity to hurt more, and you will, and so you will be able to invest more. You will learn how to treat yourself well, and fill your own cup, and you will no longer understand how to accept less from the people you love. You will have strength, peace, and courage in the wilderness when many homes line your path, and not before. You will soar into the sky alone, holding onto a million invisible tethers. People will marvel at your strength and emotional resilience, and they will not understand that it is built on a daily practice of vulnerability, exposure, and fear. You will be lifted by a million hands reaching out to hold you, and hold you up.
You will never be healed, but when you are healed, you will feel uncertain and scared and seek reassurance and you will hear words of comfort in the night, sometimes from within, and sometimes from without. You will show others what care looks like by the way you care for yourself, and as you are loved, you will learn new ways to care for yourself. You will build foundations one stone at a time, as others show up, as they can, and as you show up for them. You may realize one day, maybe today, that you never learned how to build and the ground is shaking below you. And when you learn, the most important thing you will learn is even the strongest foundations are meant to break eventually. And it will hurt. Every time. It will always hurt. The muscles of your chest will break like threads, and it will hurt like nothing has hurt before. You will never be healed, but when you are healed, it will still hurt.
You will never be healed, if you believe that your pain is something to overcome, and overcome alone. You will never be healed, if you continue to try to train yourself to be without needs, and content in isolation. Someday, maybe today, the muscles of your chest will break like threads, and you will feel more lonely than you ever have before, and you will love yourself in that moment, and those threads will reach and connect to every other human being, and you will realize that you have never felt less alone. And it will still hurt. And maybe the next day, in small ways, you will be honest. I am not as strong without you. You lift me into the sky and hold me to the earth. Let me show you how I love myself in pain, let me love you, let me accept your love.
You will never be healed, but when you are healed, you will hold the you that you are now, and you will be safe.
