Healing from past trauma is difficult. Muscles long disused protest at being stretched, the fear of pain and repeat injury makes motion hesitant and limited. Learning how to move again is effort.

So it is with emotional trauma. Feelings long buried protest at being exposed. The fear of being hurt again makes exploring past pain itself stressful and prone to relapses. Learning how to feel, and to trust those feelings, is difficult.

This past weekend, my spouse and I began to truly heal from a long period of emotional trauma. I'm still learning to put weight on those feelings again, but I feel like I _can_ again. That's a new feeling, and a very good one. I feel like I can depend and count on those feelings in ways I couldn't for a long time, and I'm immeasurably grateful for their patience and their willingness to help me move past a moment of trauma and to help rebuild something so vital and precious to me.