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Forgiveness can be a powerful tool. It can loosen the knots we often tie ourselves. It can bandage up wounds, large and small. It can heal traumas, visible and invisible. But withholding forgiveness can also cause more harm than good. It can tighten its grip on you and keep you bound to the person who hurt you.
Because forgiveness is for you, and you deserve to be free.
But as she grows older, my distractions don’t transmit their old potency and dilute far sooner than desired. Her ability to focus after a camera flash is improving. It’s only a matter of time before she sees right through me, through all of this.
What do you say to your daughter who is half the DNA of a person who causes your heart the daily battle of forgiveness versus vengeance?
I thought of you and how you love this beauty, And walking up the long beach all alone I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder As you and I once heard their monotone.
“What happens if I catch it? The White Rabbit?” His eyes burned into mine. “Different outcome for everyone. The only way to find out is to go down the rabbit hole.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, trying to separate the magnets. “Once they’re together, they’re hard to separate.” “Don’t apologize,” he says. “It’s just attraction.”
He gives up and holds up two of the magnets, the words always and more, together.
“That you are here—that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.” Whitman believed that the worth of life lies in life and suggested that in our brief time on earth, we should contribute to the greater good.
he hasn’t earned my praise. He told the truth. What anyone should have done.
A-fucking-men
Just before my thoughts whir to a stop, Sara’s beautiful, smiling face is the last image I see as my eyes blink closed and a deep sleep comes for me.
“A sunchaser?” “A person who loves sunrises and sunsets. The real term is solist, but sunchaser sounds better. Like you are chasing the sun on both sides.”
“Love is never complicated. The circumstances are but never the love.”
“An emotional side. Feelings. Whitman believed in connections with nature and self. To the simpler pleasure of life. To what really matters.
“Genuine is real. It’s true and easy. Circumstance is obligation. It’s stiff and hard. You’ll know the difference.”
We have given each other a flashlight and invited the other to shine a light on the darkness that has plagued us for years, making it a little less frightening.
“Sometimes the worst thing that happens to us turns out to be the best thing.”
I still feel like I harbor guilt for this very reason. My dad’s death was the most devastating thing to ever happen to me and yet it brought me so much closer to my siblings. They’re some of the brightest lights in my life. 🫶🏼
