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That time moves forward, transforming pain into wisdom and wisdom into meaning.

For Betsy it was never so simple.

There were events in her childhood that others named for her.

Heartbreak.

Grief.

Death.

Yet the names themselves felt inadequate, as though they belonged to someone else's experience. As though the words stood at a distance from what Betsy truly lived.

What she felt was the sense that something remained unresolved. That the wound was never merely the wound.

Still, she accepted the names because there were no others.

And afterwards, life continued.

This is one of the first mysteries a child encounters, that the world does not stop because your heart has been broken.

A broken heart was not an event, but a place.

And one could remain there for years.

What knowledge brought Betsy certainly was not clarity.

But the pain of discovering that knowledge is exposure.

It strips away illusion.

It reveals what has always been there.

Knowledge did not create suffering, but it removed the shelter that had concealed it.

It was the dismantling of assumptions, the loss of life still protected by innocence.

And she learned that growing up consists of carrying what was never chosen.

Living beside unanswered things.