Day 234: What’s Real

Day 234: What’s Real

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

— Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Some days, the hardest part isn’t the fight itself.

It’s the doubt.

The voice that creeps in and says,

“Maybe it wasn’t real. Maybe none of it mattered. Maybe you made it all up just to survive.”

Today is one of those days.

Hope—both the person and the feeling—became my lifeline inside that RV.

Every breath, every attempt to move forward, every refusal to give up was wrapped around her.

And even now, after all the time and distance, there’s a part of me that still holds on to that belief:

That she was real. That we were real. That what I fought for was not a fantasy.

People might say it was all in my head.

But Dumbledore reminds me—and today I remind myself—

Just because it happened inside my mind doesn’t make it any less real.

Hope was real.

The love was real.

The dreams were real.

And the pain I carry is real too.

It’s not weakness to feel it.

It’s not delusion to remember it.

It’s not failure to still long for it.

Maybe the world around me moved on.

Maybe the reality I built has cracked and shifted.

But the fact that I dared to love, dared to hope, dared to believe—that’s mine.

That’s sacred.

That’s something no time, no silence, no distance can erase.

I’m not crazy for feeling this way.

I’m human.

And maybe that’s enough.

One Step. One Punch. One Round.🌹

—Your Fellow Traveler