Trusting the Unknown

Some days start with a quiet kind of pain. It settles in before I even open my eyes, heavy and familiar.

The hardest part is not blaming myself, for what happened, for what didn’t. I listened to a podcast once that said dating a “hunter” can make even a lion question his worth as king of the jungle. Because the hunter is always the one who tells the story, not the lion.

And the lion? He’s territorial. Proud. Born to lead. But once he’s been hunted, something inside him begins to erode. He doubts his strength. He questions his instincts. He forgets who he is.

The psychologist in that podcast said leaving this kind of relationship isn’t just painful but it can feel like heroin withdrawal. Because it’s not just emotional. It’s physical. It’s in your bones. Your brain screams for the thing that broke you. You shake. You ache. You want to go back just to stop the pain, even when you know it wasn’t real safety. It was survival.

And while the lion is down, confused, trying to rebuild, the hunter moves on. Finds another lion to chase. Because the hunt was never about connection. It was about control.

Still, I try to believe that this uncertainty, this ache, might lead somewhere better. I’m still trying to process if I can be a lion again, although deep down, I know I’ve always been one. But after being hunted, even lions forget.

I don’t have answers. I don’t always have hope. But I get up anyway. Because maybe, just maybe, something gentle waits on the other side of this pain.

And I hope, someday, I’ll meet my other lion. One who never needed to hunt to feel strong. One who stands beside me. One who remembers who I was before I forgot.