when healing tastes like anger

I find myself awake again, early in the morning. It’s 4:31 a.m. here in D.C., and for the last two hours I’ve been working on my book. My pen moves, my fingers type, but somewhere in the middle of writing about healing, I had to stop. Anger rose up in me like a tide I couldn’t hold back. It wasn’t just sadness or nostalgia. It was fury. Because while trying to write about healing, I stumbled straight into the wound that refuses to close.

It’s easy to say “healing isn’t linear” or “time heals all wounds.” People love those phrases. They put them on mugs and Instagram graphics and talk about them like gospel. But here’s the truth nobody tells you: some wounds don’t heal the way you expect. Some stay open just enough to ache, even after years of trying to stitch them closed. And sometimes the scab is ripped off by a memory, or a smell, or the name of someone you once loved. For me, it was my ex-wife.

When a lot of people think about their exes, they feel disgust or bitterness. I wish I could say I’m different, but I’m not. I feel disgusted—not just with her, but with myself. Disgusted for trusting her. Disgusted for trusting her a second time. Because she didn’t just hurt me once. She hurt me again, in the exact same ways, and I let her back in.

The first time was when she had an affair with a coworker. One of those “we’re just friends” situations people try to play off, while the truth hums underneath. And like a fool, I believed the performance. I believed the story. Later, when the affair came to light, I told myself I would never go back. That I deserved better. And yet—there I was, years later, opening the door to her again.

The second time, she was already with someone else. I should have known when she cheated on her current girlfriend with her ex-wife that nothing had changed. She was still the same person, doing the same things, just to someone new. But I didn’t want to see it. I wanted to believe in the fresh start she was selling me.

When I found out the truth—that I was “the other woman” when I thought they had already broken up—I felt like I was underwater, struggling to breathe. She had told me stories about wanting to move, about her girlfriend not wanting to uproot because of her kids and a pending divorce. I thought she was confiding in me, being vulnerable. Instead, she was using me to escape a life she had no intention of leaving cleanly. And while I was with her, she was still talking to the same girl she’d had an affair with when we were married.

Disgust. That’s the word. Disgust not just at her, but at my own reflection. Disgust at how I allowed it. Disgust at how easy it was for her to twist my transparency into an invitation.

I was poly. I was open about my life. I had a wife and a girlfriend I loved. I was honest about the places I struggled, the parts of my relationship that were hard, the parts where I was hurting. I tried to be transparent, to give her the whole picture. And she used that as leverage. Her condition for us “starting over” was that I leave the people I loved—my wife, who is my heart, and my girlfriend, who I cared for deeply despite our turmoils. She didn’t want me to heal. She wanted me to be hers, even if it meant tearing apart my life.

And here’s the bitter irony: healing doesn’t always look like forgiveness. It doesn’t always look like peace. Sometimes healing looks like sitting in the dark at 4:31 a.m., writing a book about recovery and feeling the old wound throb like it’s brand new. Sometimes healing is realizing that while the scar is there, the ache still is too. Sometimes healing is finally naming the disgust, the betrayal, and the heartbreak for what they are—and still choosing to keep writing.

It’s funny how healing happens. It’s not a clean break. It’s not a straight line. It’s jagged, ugly, and holy all at once. It’s the act of taking back your story from the people who tried to rewrite it. It’s the decision, even at 4:31 a.m., to keep typing. To keep telling the truth. To keep loving the ones who deserve it—and to stop bleeding for the ones who don’t.

with ink + bloom, 🌻