1.2.23 // Betrayal

When I posted in early December about pain, I had no idea what was to come...
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I've had countless surgeries (my hands are a modern miracle, a spinal fusion, metal put into my collarbone), I've been hit by a car, I watched at 13 as my parents got messily divorced, and I've watched past partners turn into ghostly memories.
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But nothing mutilates you like backstabs of betrayal.
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It is a searing pain that erodes your entire being from the inside out. It leaves your mind bewildered as lies that you held as truths become poisonous bites that slowly seep into your subconscious, emotions you held as home are evicted without notice or understanding, and your emotions become your enemy as choice and autonomy become limited and someone else's actions show you how small, insignificant, forgotten, unseen, unheard, and unworthy of honesty, truth, and kindness you are.
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In the final weeks of December, I was betrayed. Not just by one, but by two people. The details are complicated, but the actions and the choices were abundantly clear, they made choices that no matter how the future unfolded, would leave me in tremendous pain.
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When the truth came out, I was not ok. I still don't know- the wound is fresh, exposed, aching.
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My mind, body, and spirit are raw and I'm more fragile than I have ever been. And I realize for many, the next step in life would be simple, move forward and on... but for me, it isn't.
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"Good people make mistakes; they sometimes do bad things too. Does that mean they're no longer 'good?' And 'bad' people (if they exist) sometimes do good things. At what point do we decide that someone has done enough to be reclassified?" I want to define people by their achievements (rather than their mistakes, because we are fucking messy humans).  And, this pain, as most things do, demands curiosity. It is a time for me to trust my intuition (because she knew something was up before and she is telling me things now), and it is a time for me to feel this pain because the only way out is through.
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Some would see that as ignorant, foolish, and maybe you're right... But that is for me to discover.
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One day at a time.