Tag Archives: forgiveness

Foibles

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I feel deeply grateful for the reminder that everyone can do their very best and still fail to communicate clearly. Everyone can mean super well and only have love in their hearts and still sometimes folks feel wounded. Relationships form over a long time and over many different exposures to one another. If you deeply desire community with people who have strong personalities and who act decisively and firmly then there will be times when there will be misunderstandings.

Bumps in the road are not cement walls.

Community is formed through apologies and forgiveness and trying again. If this exact one specific thing doesn’t work out then you keep going. If you care enough to push for it there will be more opportunities.

Tonight I walked up to the top of my road because I had a lot of big feelings in my body and breathing really deeply as I huffed my way up that big hill was good for my body. Some folks, including me, believe that we store grief in our lungs so doing things to force yourself to breathe very deeply when you are working through deep feelings allows you to let the feelings go. When I got to the top I looked out over the city and the firth and I reminded myself that we picked this city out of all the cities in the world. We decided that this was where we are going to put down roots and build community and find a place for ourselves.

Hell, I’ve already planted 15 trees. I’m staying here till I die. I am going to eat that produce, damnit.

I am in this for the long haul. I am not always an easy person and sometimes I fail to figure out how to communicate clearly in the timing that would be best. The good part is that I don’t do a lot of holding grudges. When I can see very clearly that everyone is doing their absolute best in a given moment there is no anger to hold on to. Even if there is disappointment, that will fade.

As I say in my house over and over every day: you learn a lot more from mistakes than you do from getting something right the first time. What did you learn from this mistake? How can you build on this learning moving forward? As long as you are still alive you haven’t run out of chances yet.

I am grateful when I learn how I have failed to communicate clearly. There are lessons to be had in that; every day is a school day.

Monsters and good people.

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I had my first therapy session in a while. I haven’t been driving for health reasons and this session was via technology. Yay technology.

Most of the session centered around something having to do with my kids but it has to do with my identity in this community too. One of my children is struggling to deal with shame. Ah shame, my old nemesis.

My therapist told me that until I view myself as a good person who makes mistakes instead of as a monster who sometimes does the right thing… I can’t help my kid.

Given the stuff I’ve been reading on fetlife lately about redemption and making up for mistakes and when are you allowed back into the fold and to do which behaviors… this all feels connected in my head.

I’ve done wrong and I’ve hurt people in my life. I have done everything in my power to make amends. I’ve tried to help my victims and I’ve tried to help the victims of other people. I’ve tried to not hurt more people, with varying degrees of success. I haven’t had a big flagrant boundary violation in well over a decade, approaching two decades. I did learn from my mistakes.

But at what point do the mistakes of the past no longer define you? How many fuck ups are necessary to make you a monster forever?

What kind of fuck ups can be waved away as “just a mistake”?

I don’t know.

{my shit} mommy called

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I called my mother and left her messages yesterday and this morning. She called me back tonight.

My mommy forgives me. My mommy told me that none of it was my fault–I was a little girl and I did nothing that needs to be forgiven. We talked about the things I feel so guilty for and she told me more about what was happening and stressed that none of it was my fault.

My mommy forgives me.