It’s like trying to find your way in the dark and everything familiar is no longer there. You trip, you stumble, you grit your teeth trying to find your center of gravity. But it’s gone, and you are just adrift. All those memories I have pushed down, all those feelings I tried to lock away, all that reality I pretended didn’t exist, found it’s way to me.

Forgiveness is process. That is what they all tell me. It’s multi-layered like some intricate flower O’Keefe painted long ago that has you standing in awe. You look, the first layer is just the surface, the next grabs you in and before long you feel lost in it all.

My last relationship had me losing everything I held dear. Family I had known and shared with for 25 years. Friends I held dear. Everything I counted on and everything that I felt a part of me. The worst part was the feelings of humiliation that were thrusted upon me before I had a chance to breathe. And as those last months crept by, the assaults and humiliation continued. It all destroyed me in a way no words will ever convey to anyone. The evidence is written all across my heart. A heart that is wounded and the signs of recovery seem so distant that hope feels like just a sentiment at this point.

I pushed it all down. I tried to forget. Memory that breathed forgiveness called to me. And the fight still continues. How do you forgive someone who paraded your pain around like some victory? Who has not one moment of remorse or guilt? When you are warrior? When your whole life you fought against such things? It defies everything you know and now everything you know seems gone. The sacrifices cannot be measured, the pain will never be seen, and yet, right here next to me I feel it like it is mine and has been all along.

I feel like some impossible puzzle, to which I have no answer solving. I want to hold all this in the palm of my hand, but my will is heavy and my warrior weak.