Ever closer

The Serenity Prayer oft used by Alcoholics Anonymous and others talks about living one day at a time. Sometimes a day is an eternity, sometimes even a minute can feel impossible. Simply a moment is enough. However long that moment is, even a nano-second. Life is made up of moments. Some good, some bad, some horrific. We rarely realise as they pass us by how important those moments will turn out to be in the grand scheme of things. Which pieces form the jigsaw, which ones we eject, there’s a trend I’ve seen and heard people using as they see a moment, particularly in children and label it a ‘core memory’. It is not for us to deem which memories become core, even which memories we think are forgotten but resurface. They were core all along, but only our nervous system recognised it.

That nervous system which gets to places far faster than our conscious thought can carry us. That nervous system which is never wrong. Unless it is reacting based on old information. Yet to be re-wired to understand that safety is actually here. A system that once you learn to listen to it can guide you to what is true and also show you how to escape what was true. Learning to be safe. Learning we are safe. Learning I am safe.

I am inching ever closer to words. Words I won’t say here, perhaps ever. But words I do say elsewhere. Words that matter. Words that mean something. Words that are mine and no one can take them from me. Even if they do not believe what they say.

Last year felt like I was losing everything, most of all myself. It is still luck, great therapy and the people who matter that meant I clung on to life. But also now I realise that I wasn’t where I needed to be. Back in 2024 during an online seminar I wrote down “healing is not a passive process”, it takes work, effort, movement. It’s hard and it’s not going to end in a big bang. It will always be made up of moments. My moments. Moments of my choosing and moments that I recognise, remember, hold on to.

There will never not be the horror. Those moments are never leaving. But they can become smaller. Further away in the past, as I move - ever closer - to the future.