I find myself curious about the idea that suffering some type of trauma or pain makes you stronger, like an evolution. The world evolution brings a positive feeling to an otherwise dark subject matter. We tend to treat a painful past as something to whisper about, or feel ashamed of - to hide. Yet I find myself open to discussing people's worst experiences with interest, empathy, and without repulsion or fear. When someone tells me an awful thing from their past or present my impulse is that we will be closer, or somehow understand each other better. Like a club nobody wants to join, but at least a place to feel you belong and heard.
I am beginning to feel a separation in time between my loss of my daughter and the present. It had remained a current, open wound for so long. I finally received permission, from my own self I suppose, to allow myself to accept it as reality. With that acceptance it becomes part of assimilated memory, finally allowed into the vault of memories past. Can I still feel her warm little body cradled in my lap that night, like a sleeping surreal almost child? If I focus, I can still hold that feeling of her. I can still touch her curls of hair she had in my dreams during her gestation, so vivid like yesterday. But most of the time I can not bring back sensations, smells, warmth, or the sense of having a big pregnant belly anymore. Those memories live in the past now, 95-99%.
Watching the movie Split recently got me thinking about surviving trauma as a form of evolution. It has made me stronger, having survived it. Like strain-hardened steel. My child talks about wanting to evolve, into something new and better. I think he mostly wants humankind to be better, in general. But does growth come from suffering? I believe any change causes stress, even if you look at the math that describes stress, strain, and time. I wonder if pain or suffering is a requirement for growth to happen though. I also wonder if I am better. I believe I am stronger, but does that mean better? It is not what I would choose, obviously. I would rather be a bit more stupid, weaker, and have my daughter.
Regardless, my experience define the ingredients of who I am. Still, I define who I am becoming. I think evolution sounds hopeful, and I embrace the concept. I welcome my daughter to the past, and I am hopeful for my future. My heart has so much love for her, only now with more lightness and less of an exposed nerve or raw wound. I am becoming stronger still.
