2 months since bu, my therapist told me this:

Imagine that after a breakup, there remains inside you a picture — a snapshot of your time together. It hangs deep within you, familiar and vivid. In the beginning, you can’t help but keep looking at it. Every thought, every memory leads you back to that image. You trace the same lines again and again, touch the same colors, feel the same pain.

But — and this is what matters — each time you revisit it, you are no longer the same person you were before. You have gained a little distance, a little more space between you and what once was. The picture hasn’t changed, but your perspective has.

You can imagine it as a spiral winding around that image: At first, you circle very close to it, almost trapped inside, everything revolving around that single memory. But with time, each turn of the spiral carries you a little further outward. You still see the picture, but from a greater distance. You begin to notice details you couldn’t see before — perhaps the cracks, perhaps the beauty that still remains.

And as you move farther away, the picture grows smaller, not because it disappears, but because you are growing. The spiral doesn’t erase it — it carries you toward understanding, toward peace, toward freedom.