Sorrowshine

To those who have shown me kindness, respect, and care—I see you, I feel you, and I am deeply grateful.

This is going to get personal. Please hold space for me—this is a hard one to write.

I have been overwhelmed with kindness, love, respect, collaboration, and compassion over the past few weeks. And yet, I also carry the weight of something else—something harder to name.

For most of my adult life, I have been mistreated, manipulated, psychologically and emotionally abused. And that does something to a person. It makes receiving love feel like a foreign language. It makes safety feel temporary. It makes gratitude feel like a waiting room for grief.

And that’s where I am right now—holding both. The ache of past wounds and the warmth of present love. I don’t know if there’s a word for this, but maybe there should be.

Maybe we call it sorrowshine. The way joy and sorrow can exist in the same breath. The way love can feel both healing and terrifying. The way relief carries an undercurrent of but what if.

When I feel this, I retreat. I don’t mean to—I just do. And I need to say it out loud: I hav…