The version of you that laughed without forcing it. Slept without overthinking. Trusted easily. Looked forward to things without quietly preparing for disappointment.
You remember how light everything used to feel inside you.
Not because life was perfect, but because your heart had not yet learned to brace itself.
Sometimes the deepest grief is not for somebody else. It is for the softer version of yourself that slowly disappeared while you were trying to survive.
You miss how easily you loved. How quickly you recovered. How ordinary peace felt before it became something you had to work to find.
That grief is real.
But healing is not about becoming exactly who you were before.
You know more now. You have survived things that changed you. You have learned boundaries, caution, patience and how much the heart can carry.
The goal is not to erase all of that and become untouched again.
It is to let Allah bring softness back without asking you to lose the wisdom pain taught you.
You can become gentle again without becoming unprotected.
You can trust again without ignoring what you have learned.
You can feel joy without waiting for life to punish you for it.
And you can build a new version of yourself that is not simply the person from before, but someone deeper, steadier and still capable of light.
Allah is able to restore what pain made difficult.
May Allah return peace to the parts of you that have been tense for too long, soften what had to become hard just to keep going, help you release the fear that every good moment will disappear, and give you a heart that feels safe enough to laugh freely, hope sincerely and receive joy again. Ameen.
