Ok, so far so good keeping
with my new writing schedule for the second week.
It’s funny because I’ve been going through some writing I
did about 4 or 5 years ago that I felt was really good, and now I’m thinking it’s
crap. I guess that’s normal. I think we all do that in some ways.
Like when I look back on old photos of myself and I remember
feeling so fat or unattractive when the photo was taken and now I think, hey, I
looked pretty good—sometimes vice versa. Or when I think about getting really
mad at someone--then I try to remember what I was even mad about. But at the
time it seemed like a big deal. I guess we all have those stories.
Hindsight is 20/20? Maybe? Or maybe hindsight on top of more
hindsight is what gets us closer to 20/20.
I’ve looked over some of my old blog posts and realize some
of them were very rant-like. I had so much anger in those days—and rightfully
so. I look back on those days and wonder how I kept everything together, but I
also look back and remember how I thought I had moved past my anger and was
healing. Sometimes I wonder if I did lose a piece of me? Something small or
maybe even lots of pieces?
I look at my daughter now—she’s so fierce and seems to have the
world at her feet. She’s much fiercer than I was at her age. But looking back, I
know I had that sort of confidence, I just lost it many years ago and have
never really gotten it back. I had glimpses of it from time to time but never
the real thing. Never that sense of “I know without a doubt that I am 100
percent right about…”
It’s like as if I was this perfectly intricate beautiful
plate when I was a little girl and slowly, over the years that plate was
chipped and bumped and eventually dropped and shattered and then put back
together over the years with some rough edges and uneven patterns but never the
same plate. But over time, some of that smoothness and delicate features have
returned and some spots look completely different but somehow healed and
strangely unique and beautiful. And now I can look back and wonder what I can
do to make some more of those rough edges smooth again—and not so angry or hurt
or insecure.
So maybe some of those small pieces are missing now, but it
doesn’t really matter if the plate is back together--and I know those pieces
had to go away in order to rebuild and get to where I am today.
Today I look at my daughter as she plans to head out to cover
a story for her journalism class; camera in hand and press pass tucked into her
back pocket and wonder what she will have to go through in life and what small
pieces she will be missing when she’s my age. But I hope she can find a way to make
peace with the hand she has been dealt and stay close to that confidence of
knowing where she is heading and why.
Because in the end, it doesn’t matter that those small
pieces are gone or that at some point all the pieces ended up on the floor in a
scattered mess. What matters is how we chose to piece ourselves back to
together again and what pieces we decided to keep or throw away or maybe even
make better.
I know on some level, I had to be shattered into pieces. And
on another level, I’ve had to be constantly bumped and chipped again in order
to rearrange those pieces to let go of the anger and the hurt and find my
confidence again—and push myself to do the things I know I need to do in order
to not only fix my pieces but to heal the relationships around me—even the ones
that I wish I never had.
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