You think you know who you are. You think you know how you’ll react to a situation, or a question or a friend. Or a collapsing relationship. You expect you’ll say these words, put up those boundaries.
And then life happens and you’re faced with the decision to self-evaluate, make corrections, and continue on or jump ship and wave a white flag of surrender. It was a serious sentence, but all I can imagine is a really vulgar NOPE gif splattered across a status of complete does not want.
And then you are faced with that crossroads; that decision to go left and endure or to go right and thrive. But is thriving just enduring the pain of loss? Or is it freedom wrapped in a tightly twisted bow?
So you choose that right path, that journey of cauterizing the wound. And the smell of searing heart tissues infiltrates your nose and makes your eyes blurry with tears of pain and more pain. Still, you keep walking, wanting to look back but maintaining the forward-facing horizon in your field of vision. And you can hear the calls coming from behind you; the phantom voices heckling your choices. But when you stop, back still to the past, and listen carefully… there is only silence. And the silence is deafening and it hurts just as much as the imagined jeering. But it is only since and silence cannot hurt you.
Go on. Thrive. Endure the silence, but know the silence is the negative space of words used to slice and cut and maim. You can heal now; you can take deep, healthy breaths and let your life be filled up with fullness and your lungs with the oxygen of love and freedom.
Oh, you will hear those phantom voices again, you will. They will slip into your dreams and your in-between moments. When they come, don’t fight them; fighting adds matter to phantoms. Listen, wait, and then be on your way. You don’t have to convince them or anyone else that you are doing the right thing. The evidence is in the resistance.
This is your letter to your future self. Tear drops and shaky writing all mingled together with hope and peace and right-thinking. Tuck it under your pillow and let the love of the One who knows you make your dreams restful. He is walking the right path with you and all the tenderness flowing through your body will be traced back through your arms, to your hand held firmly in his.
This path will only be walked hand-in-hand with Love.