You're Human. Forgive.

 

Today I'm honored to present the first ever guest on my blog, my dear friend Jessica Luton, @serenitywriter on twitter.

We were talking about creativity and writing the other day – well, we always do; it's either that, or cupcakes – and she said she was stuck because "real life" stuff was keeping her down and occupied. To cheer her up, I suggested a guest post. Here it is. Thank you, Jess.

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These past ten days have been very strange for me.  My creativity seemed to get shut off.  I love baking, sometimes I make jewelry, and I play with words.  I couldn’t write anything that expressed what I felt.  I continually began a piece on forgiveness.  It was about other people, past experiences, in a word, trite.  Select all, delete.  Try again.

 

Ignoring my intuition, I picked up a book to read, and stopped two paragraphs in.  It was as if a part of me had sighed disapprovingly.  The gentle insisting to look inward, still rather fledgeling, was drummed out by the urge to cram as much productivity into my day as possible.  I was hired to create a necklace, and rushed to begin.  It wasn’t long before I could see that it wasn’t coming together cohesively.  Put it aside, you should look at this.  I didn’t want to see or hear, and continued with my forced busy-ness.

 

I was offered to write a guest blog.  The more I tried to bring words together, the more they seemed to tell me to piss off, and form jumbled ideas.  “I thought it was confetti in our hair.”  To appease all I think makes me who I am, I had a long lunch with a friend.   There, I’ve had a lazy day lunch, it was great.  I enjoyed every moment of it.  Now, NOW can I get something meaningful done?  No eh.  What the heck was going on?  And since when does my intuition sound Canadian?

 

Continually old songs came to mind, they pointed to someone specific.  “Every precious dream and vision underneath the stars...”  I acted like a kid sticking my fingers in my ears, loudly shouting, lalala, I can’t hear you!  If I don’t want to look inward, and I can’t occupy my mind, I’ll watch T.V., and shut all thoughts down.  Ha!

 

Friends who needed help with forgiveness, cropped up.  To help others, sure, I’d delve into the facets of forgiveness and where it might be applied.  To myself though, I had closed my eyes, hadn’t I mastered that lesson?  Don’t laugh yet.  If I had opened my eyes right then, I would have been shown...myself.  But I kept thinking, it’s nothing to do with me.  Did I mention that I hadn’t been meditating lately?  Whatever the message, I went to extremes to avoid it.  Really, watch T.V., me?  More music came to mind, “That was the river, this is the sea.”

 

Tired of the creative block, I got quiet.  I turned my gaze inward.  I needed to forgive someone for not being who I thought he should be.  Not just past tense, but now.  It’s who I think he ought to be today as well.  What does that say about me?  “These things you keep, you better throw them all away.”  If I let go of all the anger, and clear out the clutter of the life I picture for our daughter, does that free him and me?  How open we are to seeing solutions makes all the difference, and there I was doing the limp-as-a-wet-noodle-drop toddlers are famous for.  You can lead someone to a fire, but you can’t make them throw water on it.

 

The point, I ignored all of it and held onto resentments, ... no, TIED them to me like badges of pride.  This one is from the time I was right about _________, and this one, with the gold star shows I am the better person.  And this big one here, it gives me free reign to kick his name to the curb.  That one?  That’s just for sticking pins in.  Not really, but you get my meaning?  Now you can laugh.  What was I thinking?  I’m not better than anyone else.  If I truly believe that, can I be selective in that ideal?  No.  The questions this is bringing up are wonderful.  It all boils down to being given a key to a closet door that’s in need of clearing out.  What was I thinking?

You’re human.  Forgive.

 

Here you will find Jessica's blog: http://serenitywriter.wordpress.com/