Where Love Heals

Unlearning the past is harder than anyone tells you.

I thought forgiveness would be the end of it.
Like turning off a light.

Forgive.
Heal.
Move on.

Simple.

But healing doesn’t work like that.

It circles back.
Quietly.
At the worst times.

Some days I feel proud of how far I’ve come.
Other days I meet the parts of me
that were shaped
before I even knew what life was supposed to feel like.

Before I was five,
I learned that love could sound like fists through walls
and crying behind closed doors.

I learned that monsters
don’t live under beds—
they stand in hallways.

I learned that a child
could be blamed for things
she didn’t understand.

That she could be
too loud,
too emotional,
too much.

My grandparents tried to teach me
a different language.

One made of patience.
Kindness.
Safety.

They told me I was enough.

And slowly—
I started to believe
something softer than what I had learned before.

But I lived between two worlds.

One where love stayed.
And one where it didn’t.

So I became someone
who could survive both.

Someone who could be
whatever was needed.

Because maybe—
if I was enough for everyone else—
they wouldn’t leave.

At eighteen,
I thought I had figured it out.

At twenty-three,
my life split in two.

Before.
And after.

I survived.

But survival
has a way of changing
what you believe is safe.

So I told myself a story.

That I couldn’t be safe.
That love came with conditions.
That fear was something to trust.

And for a long time,
I believed it.

Then I found love
that didn’t leave.

Gentle.
Steady.
Safe.

And still—
somehow—
I disappeared again.

So I started over.

Slowly.

Learning how to exist
without becoming someone else.

Learning how to choose myself
without fear of being abandoned.

And then—
one day—

it ended.

Just like that.

It took me years
to unlearn what that taught me.

To understand
that fear is not truth.

That survival is not identity.

Now,
I am learning something new.

That I am allowed
to feel safe.

That I am allowed
to be loved.

Not because my past has changed—
but because I no longer have to live inside it.

Knowing something
and believing it
are not the same.

So I practice.

Every day.

I remind myself:

I am enough.

Even on the days
I forget.

Because pretending to be someone else
for the sake of love
is the most exhausting thing
a heart can do.

And I’ve spent enough of my life
being afraid
to be myself.

JMS 🤍