I have been working on forgiveness, letting go and clearing away old stuff that no longer serves me. Yes, the proverbial skeletons in the closet have come out to play and dance and color my world again. But I have been praying- to release and to let go…

And this how my prayers answered me…

My son came home and had some old childhood photos…from a long time ago in a galaxy far far away- so I pulled out the blue tub of photos I had packed away in 2003. We were going through them when I found a brown paper bag of love letters not to me, but ones I had written to someone. That very someone who I was working on releasing and forgiving after all these years. They were neat and sequenstial- apparently at one point they meant something. I have no idea how they came to be in the midst of family photos, I don’t remember them.  I began to read them and realized I did not recognize the writer even though it was a version of my younger self. The words and the emotions they evoked did not resonate with me as they must have years ago. And I realized I was no longer that 20 something girl so why should I hold onto the negative emotions she felt so long ago when that path diverged? If I could no longer feel the love those words meant to evoke than why would I hold onto the hurt of this past? It made no sense. Yes it was a slice of my personal history but I did not feel compelled to keep these letters because I am walking proof of that history, an updated version of myself.

Often I have said-“if I could tell my younger self what I know now….” But that is a paradox, I am who I am because of who I was and the choices I made then. So now I say this, “Thank you, thank you for loving someone so deeply it hurt and when things didn’t work out -you and I had to learn forgiveness. Thank you, you made me who I am today- and I like me. I love me.”  And that is a perfect place to start again.