Survivor's Guilt

As constantly evolving creatures, our biggest folly lies in our expectation of another being remaining the same. The same as when we met them. The same, before life changed. The same…

What does it mean to survive an ordeal?
It is a storm of rapid, violent change; you will not be left the same.
To have survived does not ensure intactness of who you used to be.
Surviving never promised preservation.

Because how could you not be completely destroyed by the event?
How could you possibly continue?

The simple answer is that you don’t.

You are glass that cracked, shattered, was melted, and came out changed in new form.
You are made of the same stuff, but the glass blower’s breath has pushed the experience so deep into the essence of you, you carry the weight of its blow.

It is this new version, solidified, that is able to endure what you never could have before.
It is this creature, remembering, that pretends lighter days around outer forms yet unchanged.

And for once the mask of memory is a bit of aid while rough shards in unsettled edges take the time to smooth themselves out against some remaining purpose.
One tries very hard not to give in to the fall,
the one brought about by this imbalance,
this weight of absence,
this shift from all that stopped being there.