Maybe freedom isn’t something that just appears one day. Maybe it’s something you build little by little. Every day I wake up and go to work, even when my mind is heavy, I feel like I’m building a small piece of it. Some days are harder than others. Some mornings I wake up and the memories are louder than everything else. But I still get up.
I’ve learned that surviving is its own kind of strength. For a long time I thought I was broken, that something inside me was wrong. But when I look back, I see a kid who went through things no kid should ever experience and still kept going. That has to mean something.
My friend Dre tells me that pain can turn into something else if you keep moving forward. Maybe it becomes understanding. Maybe it becomes compassion. I don’t know yet. I’m still figuring it out.
What I do know is that I don’t want to carry hate forever. Hate is heavy. I carried it for years and it only made everything darker. Forgiveness doesn’t mean what happened was okay. It just means I refuse to let it control the rest of my life.
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