BRAVERY 52 | List 46

LIST 46 | List the ways you have forgiven yourself.

This is a big one!

I have forgiven myself for not being home when Caden drown when he was 2. It was my first time out of the house since the early days of his birth and I went to a scrapbook “crop” and enjoyed what was a wonderful day. The incident in the pool never would have happened had I been home, that I know to my bones.

I have also forgiven myself for not divorcing as an immediate result of that incident. There was absolutely zero chance for our already-fragile marriage to survive the trauma.

I have forgiven myself for not being more insistent over the years that Bill be a more consistent part of my life. I occasionally read the book I made of our Facebook conversations and physically flinch at all the times we both dropped the ball. Maybe I would have recognized he was sick and had him get treatment earlier. Maybe he would still be here with me, with all who miss him.

I have forgiven myself for not graduating from University. I have forgiven myself for some pretty wild behaviour in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s that was destructive - mostly of me. I have forgiven myself for not being the play-on-the-floor kind of mum to my four kids, I was more focused on the ‘shoulds’ of my life at the time. I have forgiven myself for engaging in insecure and competitive FOMO behaviour with some petty and mean-spirited women during my early years of living in Stepford North (aka Oakville). I have forgiven myself for allowing and then pushing my children to play in elite-level sport rather than simply for the fun of it. I have forgiven myself for regularly having to be reminded of the practices that make me feel good (drink more water, walk, eat better, sleep more, meditate, journal, pull a card or two).

I’ll stop here with those high- and low-lights of a full life revealed.