Lost and found

There was a time I soared. Every step a note in a song only my body knew. I moved like water, no thought between the jump and the landing, just grace finding grace. I was cheetah quick, apex, untouchable, my feet barely asking permission from the ground. Adapt like water, that was the old code. Not soft, but shapeless enough to become whatever the moment demanded.

Then the pain came, slow at first, like water learning to freeze. Every movement now asks a question first. Will this hurt me. I watched the hierarchy invert. The ones who used to fear my shadow started laughing in it, taking what was mine, daring me to move fast enough to stop them. What are you gonna do about it, they’d laugh. And the old me screamed inside a body that could no longer answer.

I lay there in that agony and no hand reached for mine. Just silence where love should have been. That broke something in me I still go looking for some nights, because that certainty, the one that lives in an able body, doesn’t come back once it’s gone.
But something grew in its place. I fear nobody now. I wish I’d carried this back when I was strong, back when I never knew what I was capable of. I lack the wolf’s hunger now, but I carry the fear that lives in his chest, which is none. They could break this body all the way down, wounded doe that I am. But when it comes to my word, to the people I love, they are nothing. That’s worth more than muscle ever was. It taught me strategy. Observe before reacting. Adapt before moving. I’m not a wolf anymore, but I can be a fox. I can be an owl. Still apex, just from a different branch, watching, learning, and when it’s time, still striking.

This awakening taught me to find myself. I know my worth now. I know my heart. Before, I couldn’t have told you who I was or what I was becoming. I won’t be something great. I’ll be better than great. I’ll be me. And knowing myself opened a door, so that when I find someone who’s found their own peace, we can share one room without losing ourselves. Loving someone before you love yourself is just borrowing a happiness you’ll eventually have to return. Relationships built on image fall like dominoes, one illusion collapsing into the next. Now I’m open, to being seen exactly as I am, by someone I see exactly as they are.

Even now, still suffering, still waking crying in sweats that feel like drowning, I am blessed. Blessed by the person this has made me, because there’s only two roads out of pain like this. One turns you soft, empathetic, tuned in to every ache around you. The other turns you bitter, envious, hating the way people laugh, hating the way they run without asking their knees for permission.

I chose neither hate. Instead, I praise them. Keep moving mindlessly, I want to tell them. Keep being water, keep the fluidity you’ll never know is a blessing until it’s gone. You don’t know grace until you’ve lost it.

And love, I’ve learned, without loyalty, is just violence wearing a softer name. So love yourself first. Then, and only then, let someone else step into the room.