Pessimist

35 - Connotations

Healing was similar in the way that grief was. It remained constant, an outlier with your other emotions as you forced yourself to keep pushing and keep living. It racked your brain day and night, wondering when the time will come when it won't be the first thing you think of as you wake up and the last thoughts you have before you fall asleep.

Healing was a long, tedious process that drained you of everything eternal. It was a battle between your head and your body, situating itself in every corner.

Healing was also wonderful, lifting a weight off of your shoulders and giving you another peace of mind amongst the trauma and hurt and ruin you feel.

It's strange, I think, sitting up against the headboard with my therapy journal cradled in my arms. How something so small could impact the way you live. How baby steps could turn into lunges and one day, there will come a time where I won't look at the past through a lens of delusion and rather a lens of clarity.

It was two weeks after telling Dean absolutely everything about me, two weeks filled with tears and laughter and happiness and sadness. Two weeks of living life and unravelling my trauma.

I felt scared for a moment, that my new truth of infertility would set me back but in all honesty, it was just another thing I needed to work through. And I did, using therapy and healthy coping mechanisms to help the bump in the road.

My hand reaches out to run my hands through Dean's hair, the strands soft and wavy under my fingertips. The colour dark, flopping against his forehead as the gentle rise and fall of his chest seem to be the only indication that he's here with me, also living.

I absorb his features for a moment, just taking him in. He's soft right now. And peaceful. His body is rolled towards me, arms almost reaching out to grab onto something and hands curled just gently. We fell asleep restlessly, our final exams coming so close to the end of our school years that I can almost breathe the sense of freedom that comes with finishing the program.

Graduation is set to the end of next month and I also pause to take that in. Graduation. An event I never thought could be within my reach but here I am, completing my degree and getting myself a life I could never dream of.

I was healing in more ways than one, and I have no one other to thank than the man sleeping next to me.

I finally closed my journal, finished with writing out my thoughts for the day before setting it on the side table and sliding down, my head resting against my pillow once again. The time shines at two AM and I have no plans on going to sleep so I roll over as well, laying on my side to face him.

My hand clutches his, fingers threading between to gain warmth as I continue on with my observations and daydreams for the rest of the night.

"You have no one," I recall the distant memory. "You have no family, no job, no source of living besides being here with me. You're a nobody, babe. I was the one who gave you a chance, who took you in and clothed you. Who fed you and gave you a home. I was the one who saved you. Who loved you and cherished you. I did that. I did it."

That wasn't true anymore, I told Devon in my head. He's just as ruthless in my memories, his voice a distant echo of insecurity I sometimes carry with me. He may have given me sanctuary for the time being, but I was the one that survived. I was the one who built a new life here, who made friends and family. I was the one who got that job, who paid rent for an apartment with my own room. I did that. I did it.

I was the one who learned how to love again.

I cuddled closer to Dean, needing to feel him to keep myself grounded. I survived. And I was healing. I was living and I was loving.