Saturday, September 29, 2012

Tell it to My Heart

I remember when Cori destroyed her journals, years ago. I couldn't fathom why she would do that.

This year I destroyed my old journals. I went through them and saved some poetry, but not all, and the rest was consigned to be recycled into something else. Some of it was buried in the wreckage.

I get it now.

I get it alot now. These moments of clarity that spring forth singing, some of them having been straining at their ropes of restraint for 20 years now. Glimpses of truth I had as a teenager, as a 20-something year old woman who didn't realize she was living a life construct that others had built for her. Pieces of wisdom I couldn't see beyond to the bigger truth they were trying to bless me with.

At Cori's, I remember I googled "wherein lies the Moral Compass" and nothing could be found. I feel like, up until now, I somehow started my search with the purest intentions, but following someone else's compass directions.

I hurt for the girl and almost-grown woman I was, then. I feel something else as well, now, for that she-being I was...forgiveness. I forgive myself for being weak and irrational, for being near-sighted and full of excuses, for using selfish logic and self-psychology as a twisted weapon, for being too much of a coward to fully go-it alone and face-up to what I had become. "I rely on bravado, you know I've made it an art." - Sheila.Nicholls

I also embrace and cherish those clear moments where I remember I found peace, where I embodied, for a moment, every bit of the woman my heart intended to be before I stopped trusting my own path and borrowed that compass off the world around me.

There are more of these moments full of the light, than there are that need forgiveness. But those that need forgiveness took up so much more space than the light, and that is why forgiveness is necessary. I just figured it out, maybe because I just got to the point where I could forgive myself.

I feel...happy...and at peace, even though there are some very hard things happening in my life with the closest people possible. I feel all brand-new and chrysalis-sticky with hope. I also feel in control of my happiness. Life will not always be happy, nor should it be, but I now have the resources within myself to make the best of each day. I won't always succeed, I know this, but I also know that this means the rest of my life will continue forward with a sunshine ratio. My life is guaranteed, from here on out, to be happier more times than not.

Simply because, I choose to smile. I choose to forgive myself my past and thusly cast the burden of their ghosts from me so that I can move forward unencumbered, into the space I was intended to fill. I am free to be brand-new, with all the elation and fear such movement entails. This is powerful stuff.

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