My therapist told me I was using my grief as an excuse.

I wanted to scream at her.

But she was right.

I had spent years at war with myself, trying to remove the broken parts instead of accepting I wasn’t broken in the first place.

That war nearly killed me.

The shift wasn't from grief to happiness. It was from "why did this happen to me?" to "what do I do with what has happened?"

That question changed everything.