365 days later - by Zarah Writes

A year ago, I wrote this. I remember sitting with so much pain in my chest that I genuinely believed something inside me had died. I wasn’t wicked. I was just exhausted. Exhausted from being hurt. Exhausted from trusting. Exhausted from believing people when they promised they would never become the reason I cried. I started pushing people away before they had the chance to leave. I hurt people before they could hurt me. It wasn’t something I was proud of, but it felt safer than being vulnerable again. I had been manipulated. I had been taken advantage of. I had been forced into intimacy. I had spent so much of my life feeling unseen, unheard and misunderstood that I eventually stopped expecting anyone to understand me at all. Somewhere along the way, I stopped having crushes. Stopped imagining a future with anyone. Stopped believing love was something meant for me. I tried to heal. I asked for help. I went to therapy. I wanted so badly to become the version of myself that wasn’t afraid anymore. But every time I thought I was making progress, the fear found its way back. So I wrote these words to myself: “Maybe I can do this on my own. Maybe I’ll try one last time to let someone in. Maybe it’s impossible… but I’ll try.” Today, exactly one year later, I found this again. And I cried. Not because the pain is still there. But because the girl who wrote those words had no idea what was waiting for her. She truly believed she would never fall in love again. She thought her heart had forgotten how. She thought she would spend the rest of her life surviving instead of living. She was wrong. Because somewhere between the healing and the heartbreak… Someone showed up. He didn’t ask me to trust him overnight. He didn’t try to fix me. He didn’t make empty promises. He was just… there. Patient. Gentle. Consistent. And little by little, without me even realizing it, the walls I had spent years building started coming down. For the first time in a long time, love didn’t feel terrifying. It felt safe. If I could go back and hug the girl who wrote those words a year ago, I would tell her this: “You don’t have to rush your healing. Your heart isn’t broken beyond repair. One day you’ll laugh without forcing it. One day you’ll stop waiting for people to leave. One day, someone will love you in a way that doesn’t make you question your worth. Just hold on a little longer.” A year ago, I didn’t believe love was still meant for me. Today… I’m in love. And somehow, against all the odds, my heart remembered how.

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