Healing is messy
“Healing isn’t magical - it’s messy, confusing and complicated. One day you will wake up full of hope, and the next day, you will feel that you are at your lowest point. Sometimes, you will see how bright a day is, but then after it, you will catch yourself in the midst of emptiness. Why? Because healing does not necessarily mean escaping from the bad happenstances, it isn’t a total way-out from worse case scenarios. It’s about accepting everything that will come your way- the good and the bad, the best and worst, the happy and sad. It’s how you face the gloomiest nights way better than before. It’s learning how not to rub salt in the wound you still have, and not to make yourself suffer more. It’s embracing that life won’t always throw you flower and sunshines- sometimes it is rocks and hailstorms. But while you have a share of its worst parts, know that you have a share of its best of times, too.”
Ren Ednalig
Some ailments are healed suddenly and miraculously. Disgrace is not one of them. There is not a horizon to reach with eternal sunshine on the other side awaiting us. It is not an infection that is cleansed and repelled at once. Disgrace breaks you permanently but not completely.
You might have a few good days or even a few moments of reprieve and think that you are now on the upswing. Specifically those around you. when they see you smile or laugh again will think, “oh good this is it. You are finally getting passed this. You’re getting over it.”
Healing from this wound isn’t really something to get over, rather it is an incorporation of the evil that you have discovered in yourself or in the world in general. You don’t heal from this. You don’t forget it. At least you shouldn’t. You have now become acquainted with the wretchedness that is embedded into Life itself. Maybe you were aware of it before, in others. You had heard of terrible acts of violence, betrayal, deception, and cruelty, but you were less aware of your capacity to feel and embody these types of evil and you did not recognize the inferno of experiencing the judgment and hate of so many people at once. Evil has ceased to be a concept. It is now an experienced fact. A bitter pill you have and continue to have let dissolve on your tongue.
You have the capacity to hurt, to deceive, and to be cruel. You are often selfish and at times easily persuaded to place yourself over the well-being of others, even those you love and respect. Ugliness used to be something you read about, now you it has been etched permanently into your life story.
The sooner you realize that your hope for a heroic story of innocence and greatness is dashed, the better. You are now destined for something uglier but far more valuable. You are now going to be the hero that rises from defeat and is victorious over evil despite, or even because of your scars and your injuries. The key to victory is not pure goodness nor extreme skill, it is the strategy and tools gained from battled experience. The game that you were originally playing is over and you lost. This is a new game and your victory is far from ensured. In fact, a betting man might be wise to bet against you.
But this game is what you’ve actually been made to play. The other one was phone and shallow. It was checkers. This is chess. The healing you have and will continue to experience will not be miraculous or sudden. You will not cross a threshold and win lifelong comfort. You will suffer but starting today it can mean something more than tears and agony. This is the suffering that will bring you to authentic redemption and true maturity.
You will sweat. You will cry. You will bleed.
And you will be great.