Memory

How do you forget?  How do you get past something, get over it, move forward, when it's burned into your mind and etched into your thoughts?  It's debatable whether the worst part of traumatic experiences is the duration itself or the aftermath.  It's different kinds of pain, though.  You can't just compare the two because even if everyone dealt with things the same, the part we are ourselves in consistently feels like the worst.

Fear.  As part of a trauma, fear often establishes itself as a primary emotion.  It is paralyizing and terrifying.  It robs us of the ability to think and breathe and make sense of life.  Suddenly, this becomes the center of everything.  It is what you worry about, what you think about, what you dream about.  You don't know what's going to happen and you are immune to anything else.  At that point, it is paralyzing and intense.  It is a stabbing pain that shoots through your life and prevents you from doing anything.

But with the aftermath of trauma, there comes an entirely different pain.  It is soft and meticulous.  It slowly creeps into your system and lodges itself in the very center, eating its way out through you until you are strugling to function because you don't know if it may happen again.  Occasionally, it eases up and with time it becomes better, but until it does, it is devastating.  Even once it passes, sometimes it will emerge again in paralyzing bouts. 

What we learn as we go through life is that we can't undo anything that happened.  We have to live with the consequences of our actions and make the best of what we have left.  Sometimes it hurts and sometimes we wonder if we're even going to get past something, but life goes on.  If there's anything I've learned from all of the hell that has come and gone thoughout this past year, it's that without a doubt, life does go on.  It may not always be pretty and marvelous, but it does continue on.  It will all be okay.  I promise.