We hear it all the time — Don’t worry, time will make the pain go away. Don’t worry. Time will make the hurt one day vanish. Don’t worry. Time will make you forget it all. But, I’ve come to find that time doesn’t take away all of the pain. It doesn’t heal everything, because that would be impossible.
Sometimes your loss will be too severe. Your wound will be too deep. Your cut will be too sharp. Your hurt will be too intense. And when that happens, you won’t forget what happened. You won’t forget the sinking feeling in your stomach that sent you reeling.
You won’t forget that pain that vowed to never stop. And you won’t ever lose that void in the pit of your stomach. That hole in your heart that won’t ever completely diminish.
Because you see, sometimes the loss is so large, that time has no power over it. Sure, the wound will dry and your heart will eventually get to the point where it doesn’t hurt so much to breathe.
But that loss that you had to endure? It will forever remain. It’s not going to go anywhere. No matter how many weeks and months and years pass.
Life isn’t going to erase the pain that you have dealt with and the obstacles you have faced. Life isn’t going to just erase all of the fucked up things you have had to go through. Life isn’t magic. And sometimes, it isn’t kind.
But maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe it’s a good thing that time can’t erase it all. That time can’t make you blind to what you have had to overcome. Because, in the end? No matter how painful and terrible the challenges and horrors you have gone through, you came out stronger.
You’ll always come out stronger.
Because even though the hurt and the ache won’t ever go away, you will eventually learn to live with it. You will learn to breathe without wincing. You will learn to laugh again. You will learn to smile again without grimacing. You will learn to walk without needing crutches. You will learn to live and be, without wanting to die.
The pain that life will hand you will try to break you. It will try to stomp on your heart over and over again until you truly feel like you would rather be buried in the ground. But, you can’t let it win. You can’t let that loss win.
Because although time will never erase your trauma, the holes in your heart, and the ashes in your lungs, it will eventually provide you with relief.
That void will never be gone. That wound will never be gone. But one day you’ll be able to live with that hurt. You’ll be able to move on with that pain still inside of you.
And you’ll learn to live with it. You’ll learn to be happy with that hurt still inside you. You’ll learn how to still be alive, with the many wounds in your heart. 
