She Called It Healing, I Called It Survival

By [Hazrat ali]

— A story about two people walking different paths under the same roof of pain.

She sat on the floor most nights, cross-legged in the corner of the living room, eyes closed, soft music playing low like a heartbeat under the silence. A candle burned beside her—lavender or sage, sometimes sandalwood. She said the scent calmed her. She said she was healing.

I watched from across the room, not because I didn’t believe her, but because I wasn’t sure I believed in anything anymore.

Her notebooks lay open like wounded birds on the carpet—filled with affirmations, half-written letters to the past, and mantras scrawled in shaky penmanship. "I release what no longer serves me." "I am safe in my own body." "Pain is not my identity."

She called it healing.

But to me, it looked like drowning in slow motion—only quieter.

I didn’t sit in stillness. I moved. I scrubbed dishes too hard, walked too long in the rain, kept busy until my legs ached. I didn’t burn candles. I burned out. I didn’t write affirmations—I wrote to-do lists. I was trying to stay afloat. I was trying to not fall apart.

I called it survival.

We had both been hurt. Different wounds, same ache. She wore hers like a tapestry—open, woven with gold thread, inviting the world to look and understand. I wore mine like a second skin—tight, invisible, and always itching.

Some nights, she'd ask, "Do you want to breathe with me?"

And I’d nod, but not move. I didn’t want to breathe. I wanted to disappear into movement, distraction, noise—anything but the echo of what I hadn’t dealt with.

She painted her grief. She gave it shape and color and canvas. She talked to her therapist with unfiltered honesty. She cried in public and didn't apologize. She named every emotion like she was planting a garden and watching it grow.

I buried mine under coffee cups and unfinished emails. I laughed at the wrong moments. I told everyone I was fine until I almost believed it. I never let my grief speak, because I was afraid of what it might say if I finally listened.

Still, we shared the same space. Two versions of pain existing beside each other—hers curated, mine concealed.

Sometimes I envied her. Other times, I resented her.

I thought her healing looked too soft, too curated, too gentle to be real. But the truth was, I just didn’t understand it. I thought if it didn’t hurt loudly like mine did, it couldn’t be valid.

But one night, I found her curled in bed, shaking. The music was off. The candle was out. Her notebooks were untouched. She looked at me and whispered, “I’m trying. I don’t always know how. But I’m trying.”

And something broke in me.

Not because I saw her weakness—but because I finally saw her humanity.

We were both trying. Just differently. Her stillness wasn’t weakness—it was rebellion. And my constant motion wasn’t strength—it was fear dressed in productivity.

She called it healing. I called it survival. But maybe they were the same thing—just with different names, different rituals, different thresholds.

We sat together that night. No candles. No movement. No silence to conquer. Just two people with aching souls and tired hearts. We didn’t talk much. We didn’t need to.

She reached for my hand, and I let her. Not because I was ready to heal. But because, for the first time, I was ready to stop pretending I wasn’t hurting.

Healing doesn’t always look like what we think.

It’s not always calm. Not always poetic.

Sometimes it’s messy. Loud. Ugly. Or invisible.

Sometimes it’s yoga and mantras.

Sometimes it’s showing up to work when your heart is breaking.

Sometimes it’s finally admitting that you’re not okay.

Sometimes it’s both.

She still lights her candles. I still forget to eat some days.

But now, we don’t judge the shape of each other’s healing.

Because maybe healing isn’t about getting it right.

Maybe it’s just about staying.

With ourselves.

With each other.

With the truth, no matter how it shows up.

Closing Line:

She called it healing. I called it survival. In the end, we both just wanted to come home to ourselves—whole, or at least honest.