HEALTHONLINEUS

“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” ~Lao Tzu

Once believed to be conflict-free, our relationship disintegrated on a fateful evening in May 2007, revealing the facade of our supposed happiness. We always said, “We’ll be all right because we never fight.” Well, that belief shattered on my dad’s fifty-fourth birthday. What was supposed to be a dinner with my parents turned into a nightmare and marked the beginning of a harrowing ordeal.

My then-husband, bleeding from a head wound after a visit with a friend, turned our evening into chaos. As I attempted to bandage him, unease …

“Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.” ~Buddha

“I’m sorry for your loss” is a perfectly acceptable response…if I’ve told you I’ve lost my phone. In that instance, I can appreciate the sentiment, empathy, and authenticity of the phrase. It’s my loss and my loss alone. I know you can put yourself in my shoes and internalize what it would feel like to be without this critical device and, as such, the words carry weight.

When I tell you my parents are dead, though? Maybe not …

I used to loathe the word “forgiveness.”

What it meant to me was that someone could hurt me, lie to me, or even abuse me, say “sorry,” and I was supposed to pretend like nothing happened. If I didn’t, they would say to me, “I thought you were a forgiving person,” or “What? I already said I was sorry.”

It felt awful, outside and inside.

I had one relationship that I knew very well wasn’t good for me and I wanted out of, but my misunderstanding of what the word “forgiveness” meant kept me stuck there for a very long …