The One Gift I Never Received

Christmas came early for me this year – this weekend Apple gifted me a new laptop because I’d been having so much trouble with my old one.Being handed a $2000 computer overwhelmed me with gratitude in a way I haven’t experienced before.

I welled up realizing how truly supported I am:

• My parents provided for me seamlessly for decades.
• My friends lend an ear or hand whenever I need them.
• My teachers gave me knowledge that moves me closer to true knowing.

My life is a continual blessing, even when the blessings are disguised in painful experiences.

But, despite all this support, one gift has always eluded me – the gift I cherish above all others.

So this year, I’m giving it to myself.

This year, I forgive.

I forgive myself for being unabashedly me – sarcastic, uplifting, angry, healing, expansive, defensive, and all-of-it-in-one.

I forgive myself for thinking there was something wrong with me. That I needed to change or choose. That no one would love the girl who wakes up drained and in pain or the woman who swears in traffic or turns into an energized chatterbox with coffee then crashes in tears.

I forgive myself for thinking I needed to stabilize, mellow out, mature, and tone it down because someone told me to. 

I forgive myself for telling quick-witted, offensive jokes, and I forgive myself for all the times I didn’t say them because I was afraid of being judged.

I forgive myself for being self-centered. For being generous. For giving too much and then resenting not being loved in return. This is my coping mechanism, my trade-off. I may not need it any more but I forgive myself for when I did.

I forgive myself for wanting love. Real love. Deep love. I forgive myself for expecting truth, wholeness, purity, and respect.

I forgive myself for seeing into the depths of souls and wanting to play with that heart.

I forgive myself for pushing others to be better – for sometimes pushing them to a breaking point when they don’t like me anymore. I strive in myself and couldn’t see to accept you as you are.

I forgive myself for hiding, for fearing, for shaming myself into silence and thinking I can’t go it alone. It’s a scary world for a vulnerable soul and I accept I don’t always know how to cope – how to stand in my emotional power and accept the pain of other’s indifference.

I forgive myself for being too moody (for whom?), too sensitive (for what?), too caring, too needy, too loud, too smart, too angry, to me.

I forgive myself for being angry. I’m angry at me, and I’m angry at you. I’m angry at how callously we treat each other – how quickly we dismiss our own divinity.

I forgive myself for being angry I’ve been hurt. For being angry I hurt others. For being angry I have to second-guess and think twice and that the picture you paint isn’t the reality you build.

I forgive myself for believing the world when it said I’m not a temple. When it said I was an object to be won, disdained, discarded. I forgive myself for being angry you believed it too.

I forgive myself for hearing the whisper that I am so much more and choosing to defer to you – to you all – instead of me. For assuming you knew more. For trusting you implicitly because I didn’t trust me and you.seemed.so.sure.

I forgive you for disposing of me because you never learned to value without controlling.

I forgive you for not knowing how to love the wild depths that can’t be contained and held. For not knowing how to open your arms wide enough for your chest to be ripped open as you stand embracing love and God itself – massive, moving, magnificent.

I forgive you for closing to this power. For staying small and allowing the rush of the world to circle past and only sip a breath of it.

I forgive myself for making a different choice – to be the wind, to stand amidst it and endure the storm because I know the peace contained within a single breath will soothe me.

I forgive myself for loving on that level. For knowing I can move into that power and clumsily finding my way there, which – for now – looks like moody anger and careless joy.

I forgive myself for spilling my energy, unchannelled and uncontained. I am just learning to move my wings.

But someday, I believe I will fly.

May you gift yourself peace, love, and the calm surrender of forgiveness this year. 

Love,
Alexis