For Half My Life I Walked This Pain

For half my life I walked this pain like it was an old friend.

It met me young. It shaped my posture. It adjusted my attitude. It sharpened my tongue and softened my heart all at once.

Pain was my shadow before I even understood what healing meant.

Some people learn to walk with grace. I learned to walk with grit. Ankles rolled, knees bruised, back screaming—but I moved. Always moved. Always forward. Because sitting still felt like surrender, and I wasn’t ready to lose.

What they don’t tell you is — pain teaches you how to perform normal.

Pain teaches you how to laugh without wincing.

Pain teaches you how to stand in rooms full of people and feel like a stranger in your own skin.

For half my life, I wore shoes like armor. Sneakers when I needed to run. Stilettos when I needed to feel powerful. Either way, I was covering up the limp. Masking the ache. Smiling through the fracture.

But here’s the wildest thing: I thought that was strength.

I thought survival was the goal. I thought endurance was the prize. I thought being the “strong one” meant never falling apart.

Until life broke me anyway.

Until the injury that didn’t just change my body — it changed everything.

And suddenly walking hurt in a different way. Movement wasn’t just uncomfortable — it became impossible. And I had to face what I had outrun for years:

That I had built an entire identity around walking through pain, but I had no idea how to walk in peace.

Healing has been the slowest, most rebellious thing I’ve ever done.

Because healing asks me to stop performing.

Healing asks me to rest.

Healing asks me to soften.

Healing asks me to believe that I deserve ease — not just endurance.

For half my life I walked this pain like it was part of me.

But not anymore.

Now I’m walking — sometimes limping, sometimes crawling, sometimes dancing — towards freedom.

Towards softness.

Towards a life where strength isn’t just surviving the storm, but building a home in the sun when the clouds finally part.

And maybe that’s what Sneakers and Stilettos is really about.

Learning to carry both.

Learning to honor where you’ve been without letting it chain you there.

Learning to walk in a body that remembers the war — but is finally ready for peace.

For Half My Life I Walked This Pain

by Sneakers and Stilettos

For half my life, I walked this pain… until it wasn’t just pain anymore. It was my reality.

It was my normal. My baseline. My everyday.

It wasn’t loud anymore. It wasn’t shocking. It just… was.

I don’t even remember the exact moment pain stopped feeling like a visitor and started feeling like home. It happened slowly. Quietly. The way survival does. One adjustment here. One compromise there. And before I knew it, I was building my life around it like it was permanent furniture.

Pain didn’t just live in my body — it lived in my choices. In the way I moved. The way I dressed. The way I said no to things other people didn’t even have to think twice about.

I didn’t fight it at first. I adapted. I got good at adapting. So good, it almost looked like thriving. I dressed it up real nice. Sneakers when I needed to survive. Stilettos when I needed to pretend.

But what nobody tells you is — when pain stays long enough… it stops feeling like an enemy. It starts to feel like identity.

I didn’t just have pain. I became it. I wove it into my story so tight I didn’t know where it ended and I began.

This was my world. My rules. My version of strong.

And for a long time… I was proud of that.

Proud of surviving what most people never even have to consider. Proud of showing up when my body wanted to quit. Proud of laughing, loving, living — while carrying something invisible, something heavy, something most people would buckle under.

But here’s the plot twist nobody prepares you for:

Healing asked me to unlearn all of it.

Healing asked me to lay down what I thought made me powerful.

Healing asked me to rewrite a reality I had gotten way too comfortable in.

Healing asked me to believe in a version of me that wasn’t just surviving — but free.

Free from the story that pain was all I’d ever know.

Free from the armor I wore so long it started feeling like skin.

For half my life I walked this pain like it was my shadow.

But I’m not afraid of the sun anymore.

This is what becoming looks like.

This is what returning to yourself feels like.

Messy. Beautiful. Terrifying. Free.

Because pain might’ve written my past — but it doesn’t get to own my future.

Not anymore.