Those Moments Don't Last

She’s afraid of what comes next, afraid that her body will fail her again, afraid that she’ll end up exactly like her parents,  distant, cold, and incapable of giving love.  They never taught her how to trust, how to love herself.  They never knew how.  So, she keeps moving, one foot in front of the other, because that’s what you do when you have no choice.  She keeps pretending, hiding the parts of herself that feel too fragile to expose.  The pain is there, always lurking just beneath the surface, but it’s easier to bury it than to face it.  The world keeps turning, and she keeps walking through it, a little more broken each day, but still moving.  She doesn’t know what it means to heal, but maybe she’s not supposed to.  Healing isn’t about fixing what’s broken, but about learning to live with it, to carry it without letting it crush her. That’s all she can ask for.
She doesn’t know what it would feel like to be whole.  Not really.  She imagines it sometimes, in stolen moments between breaths, in the quiet spaces where her mind drifts.  What would it be like to wake up and not feel the weight of the world pressing down on her chest? To walk through a day without that nagging voice in the back of her mind, telling her she’s not good enough, that she’s not doing enough, that she’s not enough at all.  Those moments don’t last.  They slip away just as quickly as they come, leaving her grasping at air, chasing after something she can’t quite touch.  So, she settles back into her routine,  the daily rituals that are supposed to make her feel normal.  She eats, she sleeps, she pretends.  The pretending is harder now.  It’s wearing thin around the edges, and she can feel the cracks spreading.  Every day, it becomes more difficult to keep up the illusion.  What else is there to do? What else can she do but keep going?

Copyright © Amanda Nolan | Year Posted 2025

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