Yesterday I wrote about survival, and today I found myself sitting with it a little longer. Not because I suddenly found the answers I was looking for, but because the more I think about survival, the more I realize how much of my life has been shaped by it.
When I look back, I don't see one traumatic event or one difficult relationship. I see a lifetime of adapting. I see a little girl who learned that home could be dangerously unpredictable, a teenager who confused resilience with responsibility, a young woman who kept believing that if she loved hard enough, understood deeply enough, or gave enough of herself, things would eventually feel safe. Looking back now, I don't judge her for that. I understand why she became who she did. She wasn't choosing chaos. She was choosing the only tools she knew to survive it.
What fascinates me now is what survival did to my mind over time. It didn't simply disappear because life became quieter. It settled in. It rewired the way I think, the way I interpret people, and the way I move through the world. I became someone who notices everything because noticing once kept me safe. I became someone who looks for patterns because patterns once helped me prepare for what was coming next. I became someone who tries to understand everyone because understanding people felt safer than being surprised by them.
For years, I thought those things were simply part of my personality. Maybe some of them are. But lately I've started wondering how much of who I thought I was was actually just survival wearing a very convincing disguise.
My mind is rarely quiet. It has always wanted to understand. It revisits conversations long after they've ended. It searches for meaning in things other people seem able to leave behind. It wants every loose end tied up neatly, every contradiction explained, every painful experience to somehow fit into a story that makes sense. I've spent years believing that if I could understand people well enough, then maybe their choices wouldn't hurt quite so much.
I'm no longer convinced that's true.
I think understanding can be a beautiful thing, but I also think there comes a point where the search for understanding becomes another way of avoiding acceptance. Some questions don't have satisfying answers. Some people never develop the emotional awareness to explain themselves, or to be accountable for things they choose to do and some wounds simply exist because life isn't always fair or logical. No amount of analyzing changes that.
That realization is both comforting and terrifying.
Comforting because maybe I don't have to keep solving every puzzle my mind presents me with. Terrifying because if I stop searching for explanations, I'm left with something much quieter: acceptance. And acceptance has always felt harder than understanding, because understanding keeps my mind busy while acceptance asks my heart to let go.
Maybe that's the real work waiting for me after survival.
Not becoming stronger.
Not becoming more resilient.
Not becoming better at carrying impossible things.
Maybe the work is learning that I don't have to make sense of every chapter in order to close the book. Maybe peace isn't found in finally understanding why everything happened the way it did. Maybe peace begins the moment we stop asking our minds to solve problems our hearts are simply meant to grieve.
I don't know if I'm there yet.
I only know that for the first time in my life, I'm beginning to wonder whether the life I've always wanted isn't waiting for me at the end of another battle. Maybe it's been waiting patiently for me to believe that I no longer have to live as though one is always about to begin.
❤️🫖JRT
Add comment
Comments