{"id":1749,"date":"2026-03-27T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildpoise.com\/?p=1749"},"modified":"2026-05-07T22:58:33","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:58:33","slug":"the-quiet-power-of-returning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildpoise.com\/?p=1749","title":{"rendered":"The Quiet Power of Returning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Quiet Power of Returning<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Day 61 – January 23, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something has been happening lately, and it is so subtle I almost missed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No dramatic breakthrough. No spiritual fireworks. No big glittering moment where everything clicked into place and I rose from the ashes in perfect lighting with a better skincare routine and meaningful background music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s quieter than that. But powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been noticing pieces of myself returning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not the version of me from before everything happened. That girl lived in a different world. She had not yet been educated in the crueler mechanics of human behavior. She still believed safety was a little more democratic than it actually is. She still moved through rooms with a softness that had never been properly punished for existing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I miss her. But this is not her return. This feels like someone else arriving. Or maybe not arriving. Reassembling. Slowly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A version of me that knows more now. Watches more carefully. Listens harder. Understands that kindness and danger are not opposites in some tidy moral story but forces that often live shockingly close together in the same world, sometimes even in the same room, sometimes even in the same smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The naive version of me assumed safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The woman I\u2019m becoming assumes awareness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And oddly enough, today that didn\u2019t feel heavy. It felt powerful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the thing I keep turning over in my head. Awareness is expensive, yes. I would have preferred a gentler education. Maybe a beautifully written essay and a glass of wine instead of all this. But still, once you have it, once you truly begin to see clearly, something changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because when you see the world clearly, you start seeing yourself clearly too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where your boundaries actually are. Where your instincts live. What your body has been trying to tell you for years. Which parts of you were always wise and which parts were merely trying to survive by being agreeable, beautiful, digestible, nice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m less interested in being digestible these days. Shocking, I know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a long time I felt like life knocked me sideways and I\u2019d just been trying to get my footing back. Trying to stand up again. Trying to get back to level ground, back to center, back to some version of self that felt familiar enough to trust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But today it occurred to me that maybe I didn\u2019t just stand back up. Maybe I stood up differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That thought stayed with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because there is a difference between recovery and transformation, and I\u2019m beginning to suspect I am not doing the first one as much as I am unwillingly, brilliantly, and inconveniently living through the second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am not becoming less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am becoming more exact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More awake. More discerning. More dangerous in the best possible way. I think that unnerves people sometimes. Women who see clearly usually do. Especially the ones who smile sweetly while clocking everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roger spent part of the day existing with the full confidence of a creature who has never once apologized for taking up space, asking for what he wants, or napping in the center of the room like the rent is in his name. Totally inspirational.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is something deeply seductive about returning to yourself slowly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not in the obvious way. In the intimate way. In the almost secret way. In the way that makes you pause in the middle of an ordinary day and think, oh, there you are.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the woman looking back is not untouched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But she is compelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is not the same. She is not smaller. She is not confused about the value of her own instincts anymore. And she is, I think, just beginning to understand the quiet power of her own return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chaos in one hand. Grace in the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And a woman, not coming back unchanged, but coming back truer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 61 – Something has been happening lately that I don\u2019t fully know how to describe yet. It\u2019s not dramatic. There\u2019s no cinematic music playing in the background. No thunderclap realization where everything suddenly makes sense. 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