What It’s Gonna Take

“I’ve diverted myself many times by becoming involved in what surrounds my pain or sadness, while never feeling the thing itself. So when someone asks me how I feel, I wind up retelling the circumstance of the pain, but not feeling it. Or strategizing what to do next, but not feeling it. Or anticipating reactions, but not feeling what is mine to feel. Or swimming in the anger of injustice, but not diving through the wound.

Though we fear it, feeling our feelings is the only clear and direct way to free our hearts of pain.” -Mark Nepo

Dear Diary:

It comes in waves.

How do you reconcile the fact that someone moved on (to someone else) and left you behind? How do you force yourself not to feel the obligatory jealousy that comes with knowing they have moved on? How do you manage to NOT feel worthless even given the fact that you know better?

Regrets can eat you alive if you let them. They swoop in fiercely and attack your already fragile sensibilites. All the things you could have done differently, all the ways you could have changed. All the fights you could have avoided if only you had chosen “happiness” over “being right”. All the things left unsaid and all the things you can never take back. It’s those thoughts that keep you captive in a place that you’d rather not be.

Trying to deal with the realities that remain is a heartwrenching battle. Loss is definitely not for the weak. I’m not weak. I’m actually surprisingly strong. But even in the middle of all this strength, I would probably trade it all in to be right back in the safety of what was.

I can lie to myself or I can be brutally honest. I can be brutally honest about all the things I swept under the rug. I can be honest about my hand in the failure. I can be honest about who I became. I can be honest about the memories….and I can be honest about what it will take to get through this pain.

I don’t know if I’m prepared to feel what I undoubtedly must. It definitely won’t be easy. But the healing must begin…

So here I go, this is me “diving through the wound”.

Your loyal friend,

Carolina

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