The people in my life, close friends, the wider community, and the therapists—they all wanted me to be OK. They needed me to be OK because pain like mine, like yours, is incredibly hard to witness. Our stories are very hard to hear. It wasn’t their fault. Not really. They didn’t know how to listen. But this is what happens when we only tell stories of how pain can be redeemed: we’re left with no stories that tell us how to live in it.
