WARNING: This is heavy. But please do comment.
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The new year is here and I have gone through a quarter-life liberation, if you will. No crisis here. Though, it was extremely difficult before the weights could be lifted.
You know how people want to make things right before they die, when they're in a 12-step program, or after a lift-threatening happening? I am not dying nor am I in alcoholics annonymous but I did have an "incident" or a series of incidents that brought me to what I recently did.
Some people write emails and click SEND while others drop a letter in the mail asking for forgiveness, forgiving people, or just thanking someone for the impact they've had on your life. Since a face-to-face encounter would entail a 1,500+ mile drive, I dove head first into the dreaded, then heart-breaking conversations. Voices from my past and mine trembled like babies starting to walk.
The first call lasted just five minutes but it was an eleven year and five minute converation I never wanted to have. That was supposed to be the conversation where I forgave...yet I was the one doing all of the apologizing. It was bizarre, too-few tears were shed, and one too many an awkward silence took place. I revealed things I wish never happened. Things I had little-to-no control over yet I continued to apologize to the confused voice on the other end. I wasn't apologizing for what took place all those years ago but for the ugly truth that I was confessing. She had no control over the situation nor did she have a clue. All she kept saying was "I wish you'd told me years ago. I never would have married him." That was the hardest call I ever had to make but I have no regrets. Two days later she told me they're divorcing. He confessed.
Having zero sense of rhyme or reason I made call number two just minutes after hanging up from my old foster mom (call number one.) This conversation ripped my heart out of my chest, stomped on it a few times and then threw it back into my body. This was the you-changed-my-life call that turned into something completely different. While I repeatedly told Patti she is the woman that shaped me into the person I am today she continuously thanked me and said our relationship never be the same as it once was. She's the best mom I ever had, ever will. Saying "I love you" and hearing "That's nice" back will do something to you no foster dad can ever do.
She gave me advice at the end of the conversation which let me know she loves me in her own way. I have to let go of the fairy-tale-like past and accept our relationship for what it now is; distant.
Company came over in the middle of call number two. Thank God for friends who will sit in your living room for twenty minutes not knowing where you are. And thank God for moments when you can come downstairs,all red-faced and puffy, and receive a hug, they pray with you, and share hot cocoa in your kitchen like nothing ever happened YET like they know EVERYTHING that happened without having to say a word.
If Pop Dan never spoke about his relative passing away and not forgiving those and asking for forgiveness before you die....
If I hadn't watched the most heart-wrenching movie about a 28-year-old man that was killed when his life seemed to have just began and ended too soon....
If I hadn't been diagnosed with a brain aneurysm and realizing how precious my life is....
If I'd never found Jesus and continue to become saved day after day....
I wouldn't have made those calls. I wouldn't be writing this blog. I wouldn't move closer to the person God wants be me to be. I am so blessed and a burden has been lifted forever because He died for our sins.
