The Hardest Day

Day 8 — December 1, 2025

Today was awful.

I’m not coating it in poetry or metaphor or clever phrasing.

It was just hard in that bone-deep, chest-tight, pulse-spiking way where your entire body remembers things you didn’t ask it to.

I woke up already bracing like my nervous system held a meeting without me and voted unanimously to panic. And by mid-morning, the weight of everything I’ve been carrying crashed down with the force of a freight train.

The truth I spoke last week. The memories I survived. The silence I broke. The man who hurt me. The system now in motion.

I haven’t said this clearly here yet, so I will now softly, without details, but firmly.

I was sexually assaulted. More than once.

By a man who should have been safe in the most basic human sense.

Someone with access, with power, with no conscience.

Reporting him didn’t magically lighten anything. It didn’t heal me. It just brought everything buried to the surface, demanding to be felt.

And today the emotions were loud.

There were moments I wanted to burn his whole world to the ground. The rage volcanic, righteous, terrifying in its intensity. Moments where I thought, “How dare he breathe freely while I’m here rebuilding myself cell by cell?”

And in almost the same breath, I wanted to disappear. Hide under blankets. Erase the world. Stop feeling everything so sharply my bones hummed with it.

Nobody tells you how violent healing feels. How grief and anger tag-team your heart like they’re running drills. How exhausting it is to cry. And then stop. And then shake. And then stare into space for five minutes before remembering to inhale.

That was my Monday.

A day where I wanted to scream and shut down at the same time. A day where I wanted to fight and collapse. A day where I wanted to reclaim my power and curl up small. A day that asked everything of me.

And somehow I’m still here.

The detective updated me. They’re moving forward. The process is real now. Justice is no longer theoretical. It’s a machine that has started, and he will be brought in.

That should have felt empowering. Instead, it felt like stepping straight into the center of a storm I’ve been trying to outrun for a year.

My body remembered things I didn’t tell it to remember. My mind ran defense against ghosts. Even the air felt sharp.

But underneath the fear and the rage and the grief, something else stayed steady, the girl still becoming.

There is a very different version of me emerging. Fierce, quiet, and unshakeable in ways I didn’t know were possible. A woman who can hold chaos in one hand and grace in the other without dropping either.

I see her. I’m not fully her yet. But she’s here rising, rebuilding, and steadying me from the inside.

And neither of us ran today.

Even through the rollercoaster in my chest, I kept moving. Not elegantly. Not bravely in the cinematic sense. But forward.

I made dinner even though I wasn’t hungry. I took a shower even though it felt impossible. I lit my little Christmas tree and let the glow settle something inside me. I pet Roger until my heartbeat remembered it was allowed to slow down.

I stayed. Sometimes that’s the entire assignment. Stay.

Tonight, I’m exhausted. Hollowed out in places, tender in others. But I’m also proud. Fiercely, fiercely proud. Because today tried to break me again. And I didn’t let it.

Chaos in one hand. Grace in the other. Wild Poise in my spine.

I’m still here. And that matters more than anything.