Things I’ve learned about healing since my journey began:

Healing isn’t linear. At the start of it, you can still repeat habits that you’ve lived with for a long time until they’re either gone, or manageable.

Healing is a choice that takes time to adapt to. It’s not something to ingest for a bit, feel good about trying, then hope the memory of its flavor is enough to say “good times.”

Declaring that you’re on this journey to others won’t always be well received. Too often, it’s the people closest to you that will challenge it, because the more you do it, the greater the chances they’ll have to face themselves.

They don’t want that. Better to paint you the enemy than to claim they were ever one.

It’s gets easier to let go of people and things that were a source of comfort when you didn’t know who you were yet. Memories of the good times, mixed with ideas of what they could have been can occur.

But they served their purpose. Chances are you’ve served theirs. Who left you and who you left can be filled with new, more exciting people that see the new you, removed from what you remember of yourself.

Overall, it is your right to heal. No one can take it from you. If you’ve lived a long enough life where you’ve given that right away to please others in the past and present, you have all the reasons and resources to change that.

And it’s not too late to start.

D.F.