Not too long ago, I woke up and just decided to love her. No conditions. Not for who she’s been, or what she’s done, or who she will eventually become, but for the person she is now. All the secret pacts I made with her suddenly fell by the wayside. All the ways I’d promise that I’d fully accept her when she measured up to some arbitrary finish line, or ‘best’ version of herself as a daughter / wife / mother / sister /friend/ etc. All the ways I’d allow her to self-flagellate when she inevitably fell from the pedestal that others placed her on. All the ways I liked her being seen through rose coloured glasses; her worth measured and typed out in adjectives easily retracted. All the ways I didn’t leap because it’s easier not to try.
But very recently something finally clicked. There was no apex or crowning moment. It was just that I finally gave myself permission to fall in love with the woman she is now. I finally forgave her for her past iterations and shadow sides.
It was an unexpected seismic shift that has allowed me to see the world in a very particular way. To be more present. To find more peace and gratitude. To have more empathy for the multitude of ways people negotiate out of pain by creating distance and severing parts of themselves that give way to vulnerability. I get it now.
The person I was a year ago? Her internal landscape is almost unrecognizable to me. She wanted nothing to do with reality. She was living in a daydream. She walked away from things and then ran towards them again, like a lost puppy in a maze. She was afraid. The person I’m going to be a year from now? I haven’t met her yet. I don’t know what her struggles and her joys might be. But I know without a doubt that the person I am now is the only one I owe allegiance to. That’s the person I can’t abandon. And I won’t.
I don’t know what’s yet to come, and there’s some comfort in that. There’s some joy in that. I do know that I’m not so easily shaken. That’s not because I don’t care. I simply accept that it’s my job to love her through tough moments, just as I love my children through tough moments too. And I can’t do that by being anywhere but here. ✨
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