Trust 30: Day 20
What’s one project that you’ve been sitting on and thinking about but haven’t made progress on? What’s stopping you? What would happen if you actually went for it and did it?
I’ve been dodging this question. Truthfully, I haven’t been wanting to answer it and have, in fact, answered it in about three different ways already. These have all been deleted. I could have gone with any of these and nobody would have known any different, yet I would know and the writing sounded hollow and false.
The one project I have been sitting on, and it hides under my bed, is not a tangible project. It isn’t painting my kitchen or scrapbook. It isn’t one of my many unfinished short stories. The project bounces around my heart like pinging pinballs. It’s a matter of forgiveness.
I like to say that it has been both my family and myself who have been so terribly wronged, and this is why the forgiveness process has been so difficult. And yes, my family was so wronged. But I need to admit that if it were not for me, my family would not have been affected. This is why the forgiveness process has been so tremendously difficult. I need to forgive the wrongdoers, and I need to forgive myself.
I feel this weight on me even more than any other that has ever pressed upon me. I’ve been told so many times that forgiveness is a process, that it will take time, that forgiving will sometimes feel easy and sometimes it won’t. However, I am impatient with it. I feel like it is an unwelcome companion. It shadows me in the dark.
I don’t know why I can’t just “let it go”. Maybe because the hurt runs so deep that the scar is inevitable. I hope to see it fade. I sometimes think the pain is no longer there and then there are days when I feel it carried in the wind and it takes my breath away. I’m not sure how it would be if it was no longer there. I can’t remember what it was like in the days of “before”. Only the “after”.
And so, this is my project. I would like to be painfully honest and say that I have gotten better. The sun is much brighter for me and my family. I no longer carry so much blame. Time does have a funny way of calming hurt and emotions. I have a long way to go, but the path seems to look further when you look straight into the horizon. I have found that you are able to better monitor your progress when you concentrate on the small steps you take right in front of you.
Sometimes the intangible projects are harder than the tangible. But they make the most impact.
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know I. ~~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I wrote and illustrated my first bestseller, "The Lovely Unicorn" in the second grade and I've been terrified of success ever since.
Published by ShadowTeamsNYC and represented by Lisa Hagen Books
Published by ShadowTeamsNYC and represented by Lisa Hagen Books
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Forgiveness is hard. So hard. Hatred, anger, these are exhausting and we are all better off being rid of them.
Unfortunately, I have not mastered the skill of ridding myself entirely of these emotions. But I understand.