I caught sight of a pale line on my wrist while washing dishes. It used to be darker. Sharper. Now it is a softened note in the margin.
The body is a quiet editor.
It revises without announcing the draft. While I hurry a sponge across a plate, something in me is repairing what I cannot see.
We like to imagine healing as a singular moment. A scene with dramatic lighting. But most healing is maintenance. Ordinary. Repetitive. Relentless in a tender way.
The body keeps working.
Survival is a miracle. Survival is also expensive. Both truths belong in the same breath.
Tuesday’s essay named the brain’s brilliance in keeping us alive.
Automatic. Life-saving. And it also told the truth about the costs that follow. Interest that compounds over time. Pain that shows up a 3am for no good reason.
We want survival to be a clean win. It isn’t. It is a negotiated life. We pay, and we keep living. Both are holy.
The scar reminded me that survival always keeps two ledgers. One side records what saved me. The other records what it took from me. Both belong. Together they don’t cancel each other out — they tell the story of my life.
Here is your invitation for this week:
Trust the intelligence already at work in you. Name the cost without pretending it cancels the miracle. Let both truths stand next to each other without argument.
Healing is mostly not dramatic.
It is faithful.
And for paid subscribers, this Thursday Offering includes two practices—a personal mantra and a creative expression exercise. Each one reinforces, in its own way, our human journey of aliveness.
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