Immunity

What you became resistant to after enough exposure — a criticism, a kind of manipulation, a type of disappointment.

The thing that used to undo you that no longer can.

What you understand about a particular kind of pain now that you have been through it enough times.

A kind of pressure that once was unbearable and that you now bear without thinking.

The hardness that grew over something soft, and whether you are glad it did.

What age or experience made you less susceptible to.

The approval you once needed that you no longer require.

A relationship dynamic that used to work on you and that you now recognize the moment it begins.

What repeated failure in one area taught you not to expect from it.

The criticism that would once have leveled you and that now lands differently.

What surviving a particular thing made impossible to be afraid of in the same way again.

The immunity built from exposure to what you most feared, and the strange freedom of it.

What you stopped needing from people once you understood it was not coming.

A kind of loss that you have now absorbed enough times to metabolize quickly.

The argument that once felt existential and now feels like information.

What becoming older has made you impervious to, and what it has made you more vulnerable to instead.

A fear that burned itself out from constant activation.

The thing that no longer has power over you because you have already survived it.

What hard experience made you capable of dismissing that you could not have dismissed otherwise.

The version of yourself that could be destroyed by something the current version can walk through.