resistance is furtive

This is the wave I must ride every time. It's the crashing of the last person that I loved wearing against the certainty of the one that I'm with now. It isn't working. I am gradually opening up to Shiny, telling him about things that have happened. They don't matter as much as they used to. I am not defined by my pain. I have better things to do with my time now.
I feel like I've become someone new. I feel a little raw but in the way that something newly hatched would be raw. Tender. I am vulnerable but not defenseless. This feeling has been slowly growing and I like it. I like it so much.
Even though I get these spots of panic or pain about people that have hurt me in the past, they don't last. They fade. Their hooks slide over the smooth surface of my heart and find nothing to hold onto. They scrape but draw no blood. Tiny sharp pricks that quickly heal with little memory.
An ache that slowly calms itself.
A hollowness that can be filled.
It's been a while since I felt that emptiness in my chest. I still have scars but they don't throb the way they used to.
Is this the passage of time?
Is this another step forward towards who I've been hoping I could become?
In this moment, it is. This moment will pass. But another like it may come again.
It hurts less every time. It gets easier to move on.

I wait for the day when these feelings are so infrequent that their acceptance is as swift as their appearance.

I have been assimilating you all.