Healing Won’t Leave You Perfectly Whole, But It Will Leave You With A Stronger Heart

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Healing is not meant to be an eraser. It it not meant to take all of the pain away. It is not going to be a permanent sharpie to mark over your wounds. It is not going to cover up everything. Because in order to heal, you need to remember the good parts.

Healing doesn’t happen in an instant. It can be slow, painful and complicated. It’s not just feeling sad; it’s feeling angry, hurt, impatient and lonely all at once. It is not as simple as taking a pill one day to fix you up. It is not as simple as having a cup of cough medicine that you can take over- night, to wake up feeling brand new.

Healing is hard work. That’s how it’s always going to be.

And when once you are done healing, you still won’t be whole. You’ll never be the same again. The truth is, if you experience profound loss whether it be a significant other or family member, your heart will remain changed. And it’s never going to be as pure as it once was. It’s never going to beat in the same way.

Once you are fully healed, even though you will never quite be the same, you will realize just how strong you have grown to be. You will realize how strong the sound of your heartbeat is. How strong the grip of your fist has become. How strong your intuition has become. And how strong your sense of peace has gotten.

Instead of crying yourself to sleep missing the way he held you, you go to bed content in just being alone. Instead of waking up with dark circles and a red splotchy face, you now wake up in a hurry to experience the new day.  You actually want to greet the world now. You want to breathe in the smell of fresh pine needles in the winter time.

You want to breathe in the newly mowed grass in the summertime and you want to breathe in the leaves as they fall to the glossy pavement in the fall.

Yet, you still sometimes dream of him. You still miss the indent his body made on your mattress. You still sometimes hear a song he used to love and feel yourself grow misty eyes. A lump grows in your throat whenever you pass by the spot where you guys first held hands. You still miss the way you used to be when you were with him. Always on a high, always smiling. And that’s just a part of life. That’s a part of love. 

You can smile now, by yourself. You can laugh just as loudly. And you run just as quickly. You aren’t the person you used to be at all. You’re stronger. You’re wiser. You’re better. Because you didn’t let the hole in your heart grow bigger. You didn’t try to cover it up with bandaids. You just let it be. You let it stay there. So it can always remind you of the magic you gave someone else. And it can always remind you of the way your heart will love again.

Healing won’t leave you whole. It won’t leave you brand new.

It will just make the world shine a little brighter when you’re happy, a little dustier when you’re sad, and a little more emotional around the edges. But most importantly, it will make your bones tougher, your cells stronger, and your heart even more beautiful.