What Doesn’t Kill You
Doesn’t always make you stronger.
Sometimes, you would have been better off without it.
I've found myself thinking about how I've changed. Have I changed?
"Well of course,' a friend of mine would answer. To her, every new day means a new you.
I get that the bulk of our experiences makes us who we are. But a few times in our lifetime, we encounter a monumental event that marks a shift in the way we see life and shapes almost every part of our existence going forward.
I have to make reference to Inside Out 2 here. Sorry if you haven’t watched the movie, (which you should by the way)😁. I’m talking about those special memories that come together to make up your sense of self.
Only difference is, while Riley’s was carefully curated to make her into the nicest little girl ever, we don’t get a say in what becomes those core memories for us.
Life just happens to us, and it changes us.
And sometimes, not for the better.
I’m sure we all have experiences we wish we could take a magic eraser and wipe out of our lives for good. Unfortunately, they’re part of what makes us US.
Those traumatic, painful memories- they didn’t kill you. But you probably would have been just fine without it.
And I absolutely recognize that we need to go through tough things to have a well rounded and realistic view of the world. But still, it just sucks to think that at the fabric of my being, my SELF is also made up of such unpleasant memories, forever coloring my view on the world, changing me in ways I don’t want to be changed.
Realizing that you are not the person you once were is one thing, but what if the person you are right now is just not it?
What if those experiences have left me with ailments that I now need to struggle with everyday, to fight to cure. What if I was better off before?
Yeah. What doesn’t kill you doesn’t always make you stronger, sometimes it leaves you broken and mangled, left to pick up the pieces of your former self.
This piece is in response to @Jason Edmund’s October Prompt: Change.
