Tomorrow

Once upon a time…

I once was quick to anger and slow to forgive. 

I’m still quick to anger. 

Believe me, my anger is fierce and fast. I hate it. I can be so chill, so mellow and snap before the hat drops.

It scares me sometimes just how much rage I feel for no apparent reason.

But, I try to tamp it down just as fast so only those who catch the micro expression know what happened. 

I’m not always successful.

But I do make the attempt.

For the most part, I am now pretty forgiving. 

At least I forgive the people who are important to me.

Lucy Maude Montgomery wrote “Life is too short to hold grudges…” and it has taken me a lifetime to learn that there is truth in those words. 

I was telling a friend about how my dad and I didn’t speak for years, almost two decades but we did ‘spend time together’; it just wasn’t amicable. 

It wasn’t for his lack of trying; it was for my lack of forgiving.

You see, we were close when I was young and then in an instant, we weren’t.

As I grew and became a teen, my dad would try to make a reconnection…

But I wouldn’t allow it.

It’s horrible to think how hard he tried and how much I pushed him away.

Maybe we could have been friends again…

But I couldn’t forgive what he did.

Granted I can’t remember exactly what happened, but I know the pain it caused, and I didn’t want to repeat it. 

I had the opportunity to reconnect with him…19 years had passed from the time we quit speaking and I found the time to speak to him again.

He died two weeks later. 

In the span of six months, I lost…so much…that I broke. 

Everything in me shattered.

It took me ten more years to realize I had disappeared. 

I’ve changed so much over the years that I rarely recognize myself. I am nothing like I once was but I am happy. 

And honestly, I think happiness is what has let me be a little more forgiving. 

I am happy, with my life, with my work, with myself. 

I can’t go back and change the past, but I can live for today knowing that there may not be a tomorrow.