Tags. Awards. Bloggy Mentions. They are so full of kindness and good intentions, yet I rarely find the time to respond or properly acknowledge them when they come my way. I always feel guilty about that, but no matter how I try to approach time, I just can't seem to make it expand and grow in a way that allows me to accomplish all that I'd like... so I tend to just feel quietly grateful for the smile they bring to my day.
Yesterday was a little different. I was tagged by Jamie with the 4-4-4 Meme. "Go into your photo archive, pick the 4th folder in your archive, select the 4th picture in your folder, and write about it. Then tag 4 other people to do the same." I took a quick peek in my fourth folder, at the fourth photo, just to see. Well, when I opened this picture I felt as though I had been hit in the chest with the same darkness I remember feeling the day this was taken.
I don't share everything here, though I do share a lot. We all (hopefully) develop our own personal ethics around blogging, for me it's simple. I won't write anything that I don't want my daughter to read (and I'm pretty open with her). I also try to be sensitive to my husband who is a very private person, and is bound professionally by his own set of ethics and a high level of confidentiality. That's it, those are my two rules... I will carry on at times about politics, and I still hope to find the nerve to someday write more intimately about yoga. Both of those things aren't for everyone... that's fine.
It's hard to know what is okay to share about this photo.
I've always believed in the inherent good of every person, that if a person was cruel or inhumane, something must have gone wrong in their life causing that behavior. Someone said to me once, "No Heather, you're wrong. Some people are just born bad." Wow. That's a lot for this Pollyanna to believe. But this past year I stood witness for the first time in my life to one of the saddest, most debilitating, disrespectful relationships imaginable, something I haven't written too much about here. For the first time I wondered if it could be true, if a person could be born bad, possessing not a bit of joy. This photo is a reminder of that relationship, the time when we were breaking free from it's hold. I'm relieved to say it is behind us now, and it has been replaced by something healthy, mutually respectful and extremely stimulating. I can't even express how much easier it is to breathe and smile these days.
While the photo and that time felt very dark and hopeless, today is much brighter. My family will be distilling the lessons from that period of our lives for a long time to come, and there are many. For that I am truly grateful.
Thank you Jamie, for the opportunity to reflect. Namaste.
