When I look in the mirror, I see a girl who learned to smile through the ache — the one who carried everyone else’s weight until her own heart began to splinter beneath it. She’s beautiful, yes, but not in the effortless way people think. Her beauty was carved from survival, from standing back up after being shattered one too many times.
There’s a sadness in her eyes that even laughter can’t hide. The kind that comes from betrayal — from trusting too easily, loving too deeply, and realizing too late that not everyone deserves that kind of softness.
She’s tired of pretending that strength means silence. Tired of being told that healing means forgiveness when sometimes it just means not bleeding for people who never bothered to care.
Still, she gets up. She breathes. She rebuilds. She learns that being broken doesn’t mean being unworthy — it means she’s lived, she’s felt, and she’s still fighting to love the reflection that looks back at her.
Because the truth is, healing doesn’t erase the cracks. It teaches you to find light in the shattered glass.
Reading Trauma Mama: Velvet & Taboo 