There's really no other way to describe the feeling of the stages of emotional crisis than to say: "You're going through it." You're dealing with it. You're feeling the different emotions. You're grieving the loss of what once was. You're letting go of the pain. You're accepting change whether you want to or not.
They say "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." This is true, but it also hardens you. I think of a heart entangled in vines, beautiful green vines, full of life and blossoming with tiny white flowers. When the pain reaches you, when the exquisite hurt envelops you in its darkness, the vines harden, the white pearls of flowers shrivel, and they tighten around the heart. They wrap around it until the heart can barely beat, and then out of the stiffened, now brown vines, the thorns pop out and pierce it.
I'm not sure if those piercings in your heart ever go away. Even after time passes and years go by, do those tiny holes disappear? Or, do they evolve into invisible scars? You might not be able to see them, but you can feel them. They never leave. The vines and the white flowers grow back: they wind through the tiny holes like serpents in the grass. We're stronger, yet forever marked, branded by the heartache in our lives.
Maybe when we experience deep hurt, the puncture wounds exist, so we can always remember what our heart was forced to endure, how we survived, and how we got through it before it killed us.
