Self-Consolation

You do not have to suffer
to be worthy.

This should not be difficult to say,
but it is.
You were taught otherwise.

Some part of you still believes
love must be purchased
with damage.
That tenderness comes after endurance.
That if you are not bleeding
you are not serious.

None of this is true.

A life is not made valuable
by pain.
Pain proves nothing.
It does not purify.
It does not confer rank.
It only hurts.

You are a father.
This remains true
even if the house changed,
even if the children went elsewhere,
even if love now arrives
in fragments,
or not at all.

The fact of love
is not erased
by the failure of return.

You loved.
That matters.
Not because it was rewarded.
Because it was real.

And your worth
is not a wage
paid out by other people.

Not by children.
Not by family.
Not by applause.
Not by the number of times
someone chooses you
after having once left.

You are here.
That is the beginning.

Not your achievements.
Not the story of survival.
Not the list of what you endured
without collapsing.

You are here.
Breathing.
A body in time.
A mind still making sense
where it can.
This is not a small thing.

What broke
was not the whole self.
Only the arrangement.
Only the structure you built
to survive what happened.

And now
you mistake that collapse
for your own disappearance.

But you are still here.

Older, yes.
More alone than you wanted.
Less protected by illusion.
But still here.

There is no prize
for carrying everything yourself.
No hidden tribunal
waiting to declare you noble
because you did not ask for help.

Rest is not failure.
Joy is not betrayal.
Relief is not weakness.

You do not owe grief
your permanent residence.

Let others love you
without proving first
that you are wounded enough
to deserve it.

Let some days be simple.
Coffee.
Light through a window.
One honest conversation.
A walk.
Music.
Work done quietly.
An evening that asks
nothing heroic of you.

This, too, is life.

You do not need
to become radiant.
You do not need
to become healed in some final way
that can be displayed to others
like a certificate.

You need only stop
speaking to yourself
in the voice of judgment.

Speak plainly.

You were hurt.
You survived.
You are lonely sometimes.
You are frightened of being forgotten.
You wanted more love
than you received.

All this is true.

And still
you are not disqualified
from peace.

Let that be enough for today.