Sometimes The Pain Lingers Even After You Leave

Sometimes the pain stays long after you leave. Sometimes their pain still shadows your every move. In the small things, like how you used to rush your morning coffee so you can avoid them or how you used to whisper certain words so they don’t hear you and throw a fit or how you used to pretend that you’re asleep because you don’t want to see them. You don’t want to talk to them. Sometimes it’s hard to see the light when you’ve been in the dark for so long.

Sometimes the pain gets worse because you realize the kind of life they forbade you from. The simple pleasures they took away from you. The little things you couldn’t do that could have made a difference in your day or in your life. All the emotions and feelings that you had to keep inside until they imploded. All the words you had to swallow and all the times you had to bite your tongue until it bled. All the times you lived in fear; scared of their mood swings or their reactions. Scared of their anger or their narcissism. Scared of their punishment or their ego.

Sometimes the pain screams louder when you leave because it finally hits you that you still have a long way to recovery. That all the doubts and fears they instilled in you won’t go away overnight. That you have to actively reprogram your mind to start believing that you deserve happiness and love. That you do not have to live in misery and accept it. That you don’t have to forbid yourself from all the things you love just so you can survive. That you are allowed to live life to the fullest.

Sometimes the pain lingers because it’s been years of the same vicious cycle that stopped making you drowsy. It’s the same chaos that stopped making you uncomfortable. It’s the same battle that you no longer wanted to win. It’s the same war that you made peace with. Sometimes the pain lingers because it’s easier to live with it than deal with the aftermath of change or the upheaval that comes with that kind of transition.

And I think if you’re going to choose a certain kind of pain, choose the pain of recovery, of getting your life back, of fixing what others broke and if you’re going to pick your battles, pick the battles that fight for your freedom, for your voice, for the little things that you weren’t allowed to do and for the things that you truly desire. And if you’re going to go to war, then you have to win. Don’t make peace until you get what you want and don’t give up until you win your life back. Until you get all your rights back. Until you free yourself from all suffering and the sadness that other people have caused and until you free yourself from all the mess that you didn’t create.