When Words Arrive Too Late
29 Dec 2025
There are songs that feel like they were written for moments when love is fragile and raw — when someone wants to be seen, understood, held in a single breath of connection before the world intrudes.
One of those songs speaks about wanting to be known by one person when everything else feels broken. About hiding from the world because the truth is too tender for judgment. About moments that feel sacred precisely because they won’t last.
On their own, those words are vulnerable.
But words do not exist in a vacuum.
They land inside lived experience.
And sometimes, when words arrive after the damage, they don’t feel poetic — they feel misplaced.
Context Is Everything
When lyrics about closeness and being seen come from someone who betrayed trust repeatedly, struggled with addiction without seeking real repair, and was emotionally absent during the most devastating loss of my life, they do not read as romance.
They read as a memory rewritten without accountability.
Because when my life broke open — when grief hollowed me out in ways I didn’t know a human could survive — I wasn’t met with presence. I wasn’t held. I wasn’t protected.
And love that disappears in crisis does not get to reappear in metaphor.
What Healing Changed
Healing didn’t make me colder.
It made me clearer.
I no longer confuse vulnerability with intimacy, emotion with responsibility, or longing with safety.
I’ve learned that being seen means being shown up for — consistently, soberly, honestly — especially when life is unbearable.
Someone doesn’t get to understand me now if they refused to protect me then.
That isn’t bitterness.
That’s discernment.
This Is the Boundary
I can appreciate the beauty of words without reopening doors they no longer belong to.
I can recognize longing without offering access.
I can say: I understand what you’re trying to say — and still say — you no longer get to say it to me.
Because healing isn’t about hardening your heart.
It’s about deciding who is allowed near it.
Where I Stand Now
I don’t need to be understood by someone who couldn’t stand with me in truth.
I know who I am.
I am a woman who survived profound loss.
A woman who rebuilt a life from wreckage.
A woman who learned that love must be safe, present, and accountable — or it isn’t love at all.
This chapter isn’t about explaining myself anymore.
It’s about living in alignment with what I now know.
Reflection Prompt
What words have been offered to you that came without accountability?
Where in your life are you being asked to choose between nostalgia and self-respect?
What boundary are you proud of setting — even if it was quiet, even if no one applauded it?
Write without editing. Truth doesn’t need polish.
Song Pairing
“Iris” — Goo Goo Dolls
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2sil8z5kiy4r76CRTXxBCA?si=EnkF6FfTQu2P_hC8ojN91w
Not as a love song anymore, but as a reminder: Feeling deeply is human. Choosing yourself is wisdom.
With all my love,
Stacey
Goo Goo Dolls: Iris
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2sil8z5kiy4r76CRTXxBCA?si=EnkF6FfTQu2P_hC8ojN91w
