Is everyone healing all the time?

Turns out, it takes longer than I thought.

It’s been a full year since I broke two bones in my leg… and I’m still healing.

The version of me with that fresh break would be both surprised and disappointed to hear this. Because that version of me had just been told by my orthopedic surgeon that it would take a year to be “fully healed” (or at least that’s what I’ve been told he said – I was on too many pain meds to remember)

The version of me that just woke up from surgery with a bunch of new metal in her leg.

But after 12 months of being in a splint, then a boot; crutches, then a cane; one physical therapist and then another physical therapist, my leg still doesn’t feel like it did before. Sure, I can now walk, snowboard, ride a bike, and do yoga. But none of it feels physically or mentally the same as when I had my pre-broken, metal-free leg. And I’m still building back up my strength and ankle mobility, and getting my leg’s shock absorbers to turn back on. Healing is very much still happening.

But you wouldn’t know it if you saw me walking around in the world, or even doing most activities (unless you look closely as I attempt a downward dog or a squat, when one ankle bends noticeably less than the other).

It’s this invisible healing that has kind of blown my mind recently. Because if you can’t see that I’m still healing, that means I can’t see that you’re still healing either.

I can’t help but wonder (said in my best Carrie Bradshaw voice), is everyone healing all the time?

Even before I broke my leg, if you had asked me if I was healing from anything, I would have said yes. It had been three years since losing my mom, and I was definitely still healing. And I don’t know if I will ever feel that my grief is fully healed. But you probably can’t see that on my face most of the time.

When I had my mastectomy earlier this year, and then my implant exchange surgery, I was told each procedure came with a 6-8 week healing process. And while my scars have sealed up and started to fade, I can’t say I feel totally healed. But you wouldn’t know that just from looking at me.

So will I ever be healed from all of these things?

Maybe answering that question starts with defining what “healed” would even mean. I thought being healed meant getting back to normal, being like I was before. But I’m realizing that is incorrect, because it’s actually impossible. My leg has a sh*t ton of metal in it now, and my boobs are made of silicone and a bunch of my nerves were cut in surgery; it’s pretty ridiculous to think that either body part would ever feel like it did before. And with my grief, my life will clearly never look like it did before my mom died.

But even if I accept that “healed” does not equal “the same as before,” at what point do I declare myself “healed?” Is it when my leg is capable of doing all of the activities I want to do in life? Is it when I don’t think about breast cancer every time I put a bra on? Is it when I don’t cry on Mother’s Day?

Or maybe healing is an ongoing, neverending process. My leg will continue to get stronger, and also keep frustrating me at times. I will get more used to these new boobs, and still always wish they were my original ones. I will keep learning to live life without my mom, and I will still be heartbroken to not have her here for big and small moments.

With all of these ways that life breaks us, we do our best to put ourselves back together (sometimes with the help of skilled surgeons). But we always become something new. Like the Japanese art of kintsugi, which involves putting broken pottery back together with a type of golden glue. The piece is “fixed,” but it is more beautiful and valuable than before.

This doesn’t mean we need to force ourselves to think of our new, healing selves as more beautiful than our old selves. Sure, that might be nice if that happens in some cases, but I doubt I’ll ever think my new leg looks better than my old leg, or that life without Mom is better than it was with her. But it does mean we can’t expect ourselves to be the same as before; doing that will make us feel much worse, because it’s hoping and waiting for something that isn’t possible.

The older I get, and the longer my list of “things I’m healing from” gets, the more I’m seeing the gold glue in other people. I think everyone is being held together by it on some level. No one gets through life unscathed. We might get to for a while, but eventually, something will get us.

If we could see the cracks of shiny gold glue poking out from each other’s sleeves and shirt collars, would we understand each other better? Would we have more empathy for each other, give each other a bit more grace? Would we give ourselves more grace, not holding ourselves to an unrealistic standard of normalcy after loss and trauma?

I guess I used to think that there was some magical point at which I would be “healed” from anything hard I go through in life. And maybe that’s because I assumed everyone else had healed from their hard things. Did I assume that because I just wasn’t paying close enough attention or asking the right questions? Or because people hide it well, and don’t let others see the places they’ve been glued back together? I think it’s probably a bit of both – and maybe that’s just part of being human. Either way, it’s changed how I think about what healing actually looks like.

I don’t think healing is something we finish. I think it’s something we keep doing, over time, often without anyone else being able to see it.

Which means if I’m still healing, you probably are too.

And honestly, knowing that makes me feel a little less broken, and a little more like I’m just… human.

(A human with some metal and silicone parts, but still human.)

If you saw this girl smiling and posing, you’d think she was just having a great day snowboarding. You might even be annoyed with her for wanting to take a picture. You’d probably have no idea this was her first day back on the mountain after a year of healing a broken leg.