Trina Stewart
There’s something strange about dates.
How one day on a calendar can hold two completely different versions of your life.
May 14th was the day I got married.
Twenty-four years later, it became the day my ex-husband died.
For a long time, that date carried weight. Heavy weight. The kind that sits quietly in my chest even when I think I’ve moved on. But this year, I realized something.
It doesn’t hurt the same anymore. I see everything with such clarity now. Living on my own has allowed me the freedom to see my life as it was.
Not because those years didn’t matter. Not because the memories disappeared. But because I finally moved forward instead of staying emotionally parked in grief.
And there’s a difference.
I think sometimes people become so attached to mourning that they stop living. They seek out spaces where sadness is constantly fed. Keep dead dog photos on their Facebook profile photo far too long rather than celebrating the present. They create relationships built around loss. Conversations built around pain. Profiles frozen in time with memorial photos and reminders of what was instead of what still could be.
I understand it because I lived there for a while.
But eventually you realize life is supposed to move.
Not disrespectfully. Not coldly. Just honestly.
Life is meant to be celebrated. Every single day of it.
The hard days. The rebuilding days. The awkward days where you don’t know who you are anymore. The days where you look in the mirror and still hear old insults echoing around your head.
Believe me, I know what judgment feels like. I lived watching my family, my ex-husband’s family and my ex-partner’s family judge everyone to feel better about themselves.
As an overweight woman, I’ve had people reduce me down to my size as though that somehow defines my value. I’ve had cruel words thrown at me by people who were supposed to love or respect me. I remember receiving a text from my ex-partner’s daughter where she called me a “Piggy piggy oink oink.”
And you know what? It did ring in my ears for a long time and it hurt terribly. But, that message made me realize that I was going to be eternity unsafe because I wasn’t protected by someone who said that they loved me.
I actually feel pity that she doesn’t follow people like Alicia McCarvell, while plus size with her very handsome “buff” husband, she lives life proud in her own skin. We need more young ladies like that in the World.
That said, my past and things said doesn’t destroy me anymore.
Because cruelty says more about the person delivering it than the person receiving it. It’s a history of abusive behaviour that doesn’t allow them to see people as human beings.
That romantic relationship was abusive. Toxic. A place where I could never fully exist as a human being because I was constantly being reduced into pieces someone else wanted to criticize.
Too fat. Too emotional. Too loud. A home wrecker, labelled from someone who joins “People of” and visits the town occasionally, rather than immersing themselves in the environment completely as they now have the freedom to do so.
But healing changes your lens.
The other day, one of my employees mentioned her period was late, and I immediately joked, “Oh no… are you pregnant?” She laughed and reminded me she couldn’t be because her partner is transgender.
And honestly? My brain never even went there.
Not because I was trying to be politically correct. Not because I was overthinking identity. But because I simply see her partner as a guy. A human being. That’s it.
She actually told me that was a good thing.
And maybe it is.
Because I think life gets a whole lot lighter when we stop obsessing over labels and imperfections and start seeing people for who they are underneath all of it.
Human beings.
Broken sometimes. Scarred sometimes. Mourning sometimes.
But still deserving of joy.
Still deserving of love.
Still deserving of another chapter.
So this May 14th feels different.
Not forgotten. Not erased. Just different.
For the first time in a long time, I don’t feel tied to grief. I feel tied to possibility. What the World has in store for my family and myself.
And maybe that’s what healing actually is.
Not forgetting the past.
Just finally loving yourself enough to stop living there.
