The Dates My Body Remembers

I don’t always remember the date right away, but my body does.

There are certain dates my body remembers before I do.

I don’t always wake up and think, “This is that day."

Sometimes it’s quieter than that. Heavier.

A tension I can’t explain. A weight or profound sadness that settles in before I’ve even had time to name it.

And then I realize.

This week marks the anniversary of the last time I was trafficked.

There’s no ceremony for days like this. No clear script for how you’re supposed to feel when you’ve survived something that never should have happened in the first place.

Just the quiet awareness that, somehow, time has moved forward…and part of you is still learning how to catch up.

What makes this year different is that these dates aren’t standing alone.

They’re colliding with something else.

A deadline.

For the past few months, I’ve been working to submit documentation for a remission fund tied to backpage. On paper, it sounds like a little bit of justice. Like progress. Like something good.

But what people don’t always understand is this: 

sometimes the very systems meant to help survivors require us to reopen what we’ve spent years trying to heal.

Forms.

Timelines.

Evidence.

And then there’s the reality of time.

Time doesn’t preserve evidence the way systems expect it to.  Records don’t always exist anymore. Providers relocate, retire, or can’t be reached. The people who once knew pieces of your story may not remember the details the way the system expects them to.  But the expectation to prove it all hasn’t changed.

Pieces of your life reduced to something you have to organize, explain, and prove.

Over and over again.

There’s something deeply disorienting about having to package your trauma into something “acceptable.” To translate lived experience into paperwork. To take moments that were chaotic, painful, and complex… and force them into neat boxes with dates, descriptions, and proof.

 Survival doesn’t happen in bullet points. But sometimes, the system requires it to.

There’s a strange tension in that.  Because at the same time I’m honoring how far I’ve come, I’m also being asked to revisit where I’ve been.  At the same time, I’m building a life that feels safe, I’m sorting through memories that never were.

And both of those things are happening at once.  That’s the part of healing people don’t talk about.

Healing is not linear.

It doesn’t mean the past disappears.

It doesn’t mean certain dates stop carrying weight.

It means you learn how to hold it differently.

Some years, anniversaries feel loud.  Other years, they’re quiet but heavy. Sometimes they catch you off guard in ways you can’t explain to anyone else.

And sometimes, like this year, they arrive alongside something that asks even more of you.

More remembering.

More processing.

More strength than you thought you’d need again.

But here’s what I’ve learned, and what I keep coming back to:

I am not where I was.

Even on the days that feel heavy.

Even when memories resurface.

Even when the past feels closer than I want it to.

I am not there anymore.

And that matters.

Healing, for me, hasn’t been about forgetting.

It's been about learning how to stay present when the past tries to pull me backward.

It’s been about recognizing the triggers without letting them define me. About giving myself permission to feel without letting it consume me.

About choosing, over and over again, to keep moving forward… even when certain dates try to pull me back.

So, if you’re someone who carries dates like this too… quietly, heavily, without always having the words for it…

You’re not alone.

Some dates don’t disappear.

But neither do we.