Page 7: Forgiveness
✯ Old photo: Past days in the wild.
“I need to learn to forgive myself, treat myself with the kindness and compassion that I’d give to others, but often fail to do so for myself. I need to forgive myself, not to sculpt excuses, not to surrender, but to give myself more strength to fight adversity. ”
Forgiveness
July 2019
Sixteen months later and I’ve little left but the residue of the words I once wrote. Here I am, writing these words, not from some faraway country, but from my bed. It’s taken days to unearth the energy to begin to write. No doubt, by the time you read this, I’ll have rewritten it many times to better express my thoughts. The physical discomfort I feel right now is nothing compared to the uncomfortable fact that burrows into my brain. I never began the journey. I missed my deadline.
Why? I underestimated my illness, overestimated my capability. I wasn’t well enough to build an online foundation in time or get far beyond the beginning. The moment the deadline died, doubt began to infect my thoughts, and my morale began to melt. Within months, diminished capability mutated hope into hopelessness and exhaustion dissolved my resolve. I hate to admit this, but I want to be honest with you, last month, I had another relapse. Relapse? Bulimia. Comfort food for a crushed soul. Fingers forced into throat. How did that happen? I thought I’d become stronger? Before that, I spent seventeen months working on myself mentally, emotionally. Countless hours spent trying to build a better brain, better resilience. But, once again, I failed.
Although the relapse ended within weeks, the fact still erodes my self-esteem. It brings tears to my eyes to reflect upon my actions, I made myself sick while millions starve. My guilt begins with the previous fact and grows from the following; every time I succumb to adversity, I diminish the happiness of those I hold close. Fact’s I must imprint upon the walls of my mind to ensure that there will be no next time, for every time I allow myself to fail, I resent myself a little more. It’s a cycle of self-harm and a waste of precious energy. I need to learn to forgive myself, treat myself with the kindness and compassion that I’d give to others, but often fail to do so for myself. I need to forgive myself, not to sculpt excuses, not to surrender, but to give myself more strength to fight adversity. My next step’s simple, keep the dream alive, create a new deadline. March 2020.
With warmth,
Davey