the wound is not my address

There was a season of my life when I knew every room of a certain story by heart.

I knew what had happened.

I knew what should have happened.

I knew who had disappointed me, who had left, who had failed to show up, who had not seen me in the way I longed to be seen.

I knew the story so well that I could walk through it in the dark.

What I did not realize was that somewhere along the way, I had started living inside that story.

Not intentionally. Not because I wanted to stay there. But because what is familiar can quietly begin to feel like home.

For a long time, I thought healing meant resolving everything…understanding it all, finding closure, receiving the apology…watching things finally make sense.

I thought peace would arrive when the story itself changed.

But lately, I have begun to wonder if healing asks something different of us.

What if healing is not about rewriting the story? What if it is simply about no longer living inside it?

The people may remain who they are.

The past may remain what it was.

The facts may never rearrange themselves into the version we wished for.

And yet, something can still shift.

One day, we find ourselves in a familiar moment, facing a familiar pattern, and noticing that our heart responds differently.

Not because we no longer care. Not because we have become hardened. But because we are no longer carrying what was never ours to carry.

Recently, a quiet realization came to me: you do not have to carry everyone who could not carry you.

I sat with that for a long time.

How many of us have spent years carrying people? Carrying their expectations…carrying their disappointments…carrying their confusion…carrying their inability to meet us where we are…carrying stories that were never ours to resolve.

And in the process, forgetting to carry ourselves.

Perhaps healing begins there. Not in fixing the past. Not in changing another person. But in gently returning to ourselves.

In remembering that God did not ask us to carry the world. Only the trust He placed within us.

The story may always be part of our lives. But it does not have to become where we live.

It does not have to become the lens through which we see everything.

There is another address available to us.

A quieter one.

A truer one.

A place where the past is remembered but no longer rules. A place where we finally put down what was never ours to carry.

The story is part of my life. But it is no longer my address.

A reflection for you: if the story is no longer your address, where is home now…?

— Madina