Light
597 Words
I didn’t find the light the way people talk about it.
There was no sudden clarity.
No dramatic moment where everything finally made sense.
No switch flipping inside me, no clean before-and-after.
The light came quietly.
So quietly, I almost missed it.
It showed up in small mercies.
In mornings where I didn’t dread waking up as much.
In moments where my chest didn’t feel so tight holding everything in.
In the pause between breaths where I realised I was still here, still trying.
For a long time, I thought light meant happiness.
Constant joy.
Certainty.
Peace that never shakes or cracks under pressure.
I thought finding the light meant arriving somewhere permanent, somewhere safe enough that nothing could touch me again.
But light isn’t loud like that.
It doesn’t announce itself or demand applause.
Sometimes it’s just the ability to see clearly enough to take one more step.
Sometimes it’s choosing to stay when it would be easier to disappear.
There were days I lived in survival mode.
Days where existing felt like work.
Where the world felt heavy and I carried myself like an apology.
Where I learned how to shrink my needs so I wouldn’t inconvenience anyone.
Where I confused strength with silence
and healing with pretending I was fine.
I wore resilience like armor.
I learned how to endure.
But endurance is not the same thing as living.
Over time, I learned that darkness doesn’t always mean something is wrong with you.
Sometimes it’s where you go when you’re shedding old skins.
Sometimes it’s the quiet place where the old version of you loosens its grip.
Sometimes it’s the womb before rebirth, not the grave.
The light didn’t erase my wounds.
It didn’t rush me or demand I be whole before I was ready.
It showed my wounds to me gently.
It taught me how to tend to them instead of hiding them.
How to sit with them without shame.
How to stop treating my pain like a personal failure.
Light taught me that softness is not a weakness.
That rest is not laziness.
That slowing down doesn’t mean you’re falling behind.
It taught me that I don’t have to earn peace by suffering first.
There was a time I believed I had to break myself open to deserve good things.
That love, joy, and safety had to be paid for in pain.
That I had to prove how much I could endure before I was allowed to receive.
Now I know the light asks for something else entirely.
Not perfection.
Not sacrifice.
But honesty.
Presence.
The courage to stop abandoning myself just to be accepted.
Some days, the light is faint.
Some days, it flickers.
Some days, all I can do is cup my hands around it and protect it from the wind.
But even then, it exists.
Even then, it’s enough.
I no longer chase brightness like it’s a destination I haven’t reached yet.
I don’t treat healing like a finish line.
I carry the light with me now.
In the way I speak to myself when no one is listening.
In the boundaries I honor even when it costs me closeness.
In the softness I no longer apologize for.
The light is not the absence of darkness.
It is the decision to keep going anyway.
To stay curious.
To stay open.
To stay kind to the person I am becoming.
And maybe that’s the truest kind of healing,
not becoming someone untouched by pain,
but becoming someone illuminated enough
to see themselves with grace,
and choose themselves
again and again.
- Writer
