The whispers danced around her; flitting and flickering like sunlight on river pebbles. Their love heavy and rich upon her. Peace came on the wings of butterflies and glint of twinkle lights. She was empty and completely full. She made her way. Each step lighter than the one before. The Universe opened up to meet her. Sinking in and in until they were one. Until there was nothing left to do but float away.

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters in the end.”  – Ernest Hemingway

I’ve been thinking about this one forever it seems. I’m still not sure that I have it right. I’m trying to capture what we go through after we have experienced something amazing. That parallel feeling of trying to imbed the moment inside you while simultaneously feeling it slipping away. You capture something, but it is a fragment at best and you know you’ve lost something important.

I don’t think this one is finished. So, if you have any thoughts you’d like to share with me, I’d welcome the feedback.

Afterglow
She was full with so many things. Her heart pulsing until she could feel it everywhere. Dizzy, bursting, spilling over. She tried to gather it all up, to pull it around herself tight, capturing some while others slipped away. She was desperate to hold on, to always feel this way. She looped the images over and over in her mind willing them to stay but the edges muted and faded with each turn until all that was left was a sensation that she had lost something.

My contemplation on the notion of forgiveness this week was not caused by something that was done to me, but instead something that was done to my child. The details of what happened are irrelevant, but the aftermath is worth talking about.

I allowed myself to soak in my anger. To contemplate how I might handle the situation. To agonize over the fact that this boy who had inflicted harm on my son had already, at such a young age, relinquished his innocence to something hardened and ugly. I spent the day plotting my vengeance, penning emails in my head, picturing the justice that would surely come at my hands. I slept little that night as I fought with our decision to let this go. To take no action. How could I let this go? How could I do nothing ? Doing that would mean acceptance, show weakness, validate that this was somehow ok allowing this boy to “win”, to control the power. It didn’t seem right. It didn’t seem right.

I woke the next day heavy and weary, hung-over with my emotion and fury. I laid there unwilling to move. “I’m trying to get down to the heart of the matter, and I think it’s about forgiveness.” This lyric made its way into my mind and with it came clarity. This child needed my love much more than he needed my anger. In that moment, I made a choice. I asked the universe to take care of this one who had lost his way, to surround him with light and love, to wrap him in goodness, to fill him up with kindness, to help him get back to where he once was. I prayed for him and for his family, saying these words over and over until I could no longer feel the burden of his presence.

Later that day, I spoke to my child about this. A monologue on forgiveness and letting go that went on for longer than he probably wanted. In the end, I looked at him and said “You understand why we need to do this, right?”

“Mommy, this is what we are supposed to do. We are supposed to forgive”. For him it was so simple, so obvious, as if there was no other choice. No other choice.

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. -Ghandi

She pulled her train into the station sitting for a moment before making her way out of the car. She noticed a bench in the distance and went to sit for a while. Just a moment to breathe and be still. Breathe and be still. She leaned into the seat, letting her eyes close as she pulled the air in through her nose and let it slowly escape again. She was so tired. Her eyelids lifted with effort and she forced her gaze upon her train, considering each car. There were so many now. Some beautiful, fast, light, filled with treasures she had gathered on her way. She gazed at these lovingly and they reflected her beauty in kind. Others were unpleasant and battered. Littered with things that should have been discarded long ago. She looked at these and her image returned ugly, distorted, unrecognizable. She reflected on how these cars with their heaviness had made their way to her track and why she’d allowed them to stay. She laid her head back and rested, weary with all of her thinking. So tired. The sun had set and was already given rise to a new day. How much time had passed? How much time had passed? She needed to go. As she approached the track, the sun settled into its perch and reflected brightly off one of the train cars and wrapped it’s warmth around her. She stood perfectly still, dazed by this radiance and allowed the light to shower down upon her. She stretched her arms wide, titled her chin up and stood there soaking in until she was overflowing and she knew its purpose. It’s time. She slowly walked down the track and stood before each of the worn down old train cars peering into the windows at the passengers there. She pressed her face and hands to the glass and allowed the light that filled her to flow into these that needed it more until there was nothing left. Slowly, one by one, she released the cars and when she was done she turned away without looking back. She climbed onto her train ready to continue her journey. Free and light. Free and light.

Remember when people used to send family letters at Christmas? They would arrive all smug in their long envelopes impossible to ignore among the other regular sized cards. 365 days crammed into one 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper. You wanted to flick them into the trash upon arrival, but like any good tragedy, you couldn’t seem to help yourself from looking. The year was, of course, only full of perfect moments. The children were future NHL or NFL stars with Rhodes scholarship worthy grades. Vacations were in exotic destinations. New jobs were dreamy and rewarding. Life was perfect, perfect, perfect. I would read these letters and shake my head because I was certain that the future Rhodes scholar had a propensity for pulling legs off of spiders, that the next Wayne Gretzky had been lost for hours while the parents were gulping Mai Tai’s poolside during their vacation, and that the fulfilling new job was pretty much the same as working for Satan. Ok, so maybe I didn’t know these things to be fact, but I certainly knew there was way more to the story than this piece of paper was letting on. Eventually, people stopped sending these letters. I’m not sure of the reasons, but I imagine that there was just too much awesomeness happening and the task of writing all of it down became far too exhausting. I for one, was just fine with this. I didn’t need all this smugness in my life……………..

And then social media arrived on my door step. The new Christmas Letter. Sent every day, every hour, every minute. It was the Christmas letter on steroids. Before I go on with my rant, know that I am fully aware that I am guilty of just about every last thing I’m about to mention. Ok, back to my rant….. Not only are we posting about every perfect moment in our life, our definition of perfect has expanded to include what we ate for breakfast, the workout we just did, the shoes we just bought (by the way, don’t stop posting shoes, I love shoes..), second by second coverage of our child’s accomplishments. But wait, there’s more!! Not only do we need to write about these things, we’re inclined to include pictures, because you REALLY need to SEE the flourless, egg less, gluten free, organic, grass-fed, wild caught, paleo, whole food, non-GMO, thingy I just made (forget the fact that I ate a whole sleeve of thin mint Girl Scout cookies while I was cooking), and then you need to see me eating it (selfie!)… “Yummm, so good and the kids and hubs loved it (no one got past the first bite)” and then you need to see my dirty dish that I made with upcycled materials and then “oh here’s my new dishwasher, look how shiny the inside is, did you know you can clean your dishwasher with Tang?” On and on and on we go.

Detail after detail, day after day. Familiarity breeding contempt. The thing is, I don’t think we were ever meant to have all of this insight into each other’s daily lives. Relationships are built on the give and take of real moments. Stories doled out over time laced with honesty and vulnerability to a few trusted friends. Instead, social media has led us to feel obligated to share, share, share. Every post carefully considered and weighed because our 473 Facebook “friends” include our ex-boyfriend ( I can’t possibly let him see this picture of me where you can see the wrinkles around my eyes. Yep, I have plenty of those), your high-school nemesis that has now risen to mother of the year status ( She can’t know that I left church on Christmas Eve without my son. Yep, this happened.) and your child’s teacher (she needs to see that we are reading, reading, reading at our house, when in fact we watched TV for 6 hours straight in our pajamas and ate chips for dinner ( Gasp!!! Also true. Oh, yeah, please don’t tell let that mother of the year know about this).

We are unfriending each other (whatever that means), hiding people’s feeds because we can’t take it anymore, we are refusing to look, refraining from commenting, growing weary of one another. Look at what we have become. By our own hand, we are killing our relationships. We need to stop. Because I really, really, really don’t want to NOT like you. Don’t make it come to that.

It’s my little girl wonder’s birthday tomorrow. I thought it fitting to talk about growing a girl….

We are in a world in which our children can do anything. Be anything. As females, we have broken barriers in so many places. We are doctors, CEOs, lawyers, scientists, teachers, psychologists, chefs, coaches, mothers, engineers, artists, dancers, authors. We are present in every profession and at every rung of the career ladder. While we may not have reached full equality, yes those male counter parts still earn about 25% more than we do, we should stand proud at where we are in this moment.

What troubles me though is that in our fight for equality I see us now, as women, making judgments of ONE ANOTHER. We are the catalysts of are very own oppression. I hear it and see it all the time and it goes something like this…. A stay at home mom can’t possibly be teaching her child about striving in the professional world. A career woman is neglecting her duties as mother, wife, caregiver. A woman who can show empathy and emotion isn’t capable of being strong and decisive. A woman who is strong and decisive is cold and calculating. A beautiful woman can’t be smart. A women without children selfishly chose career over family. If we dress too feminine, then we are unprofessional. If we dress conservatively, we are trying too hard to hide our femininity. If we are executives we can’t be domestic. The list goes on and on. We judge and we judge and we judge and the limiting boxes we put each other in multiply and multiply. What is worse than all of this, is that we are teaching our daughters to do the same. They are already closing their minds, creating their own mental boxes of what should “be” what is “right”, what is “possible”. You think you aren’t doing this, that you can’t possibly be raising your child in this way? We need only listen to their words as they comment about how someone dresses, or how this girl spends her time, or what that girls likes to do. We need only watch them as their eyes take everything in and they begin to decide what goes where. WE are growing these girls. We are doing this together. Let’s teach them acceptance and the art of possible. Let’s open their minds. The road is built. Let’s give them a good map. Judge less. Love more.