Not Broken, But Changed

I once thought healing meant leaving pain behind—that with enough time, the weight of loss, heartbreak, or disappointment would lift, and I’d feel whole again. But time has shown me something different. Some wounds don’t vanish. They shift, they soften, but they remain—etched into the fabric of who I am, not as burdens but as quiet reminders of love, of depth, of all I have lived through.

I no longer wait for the day when every ache disappears to allow myself joy. I have learned that happiness and hurt can coexist, intertwining in ways I never expected. There are moments when laughter spills from my lips even as my heart carries the weight of absence. There are days when I feel both gratitude and grief in the same breath, neither one canceling out the other.

Moving forward does not mean forgetting. Healing does not mean erasing. I am not broken because I still feel the sting of what I have lost. I am whole because I have allowed myself to feel it all—because I have learned to hold sorrow in one hand and hope in the other, allowing them to shape me rather than define me.

Life isn’t about getting over everything; it’s about making space for both the light and the shadows, knowing that even the deepest wounds can exist alongside joy. And in that space—in the in-between of remembering and becoming—I continue to grow.

With love, Aimee 💗