letting it go.

every year, every holiday - I take on the duty of enforcing card making, gift buying or creating. I assume the responsibility a parent should to help accommodate the child`s role in the other parents life. This year, without realizing, I forgot. If I hadn't by chance been reminded, I likely wouldn't have remembered. This is the obvious result of putting someone last, every time. By working so hard to convince everyone around you that you are doing the work but not actually doing anything at all. This is the result of working my fucking ass off to keep a relationship maintained because I was certain that in the end, it would be civil.... and being wrong in doing so. I make a helluva lot of mistakes, and every damn day I am still learning - but that's the difference, I am learning. I am devoted to never going back to where I've been. I am forgiving myself for not wanting to be alone forever, and accepting that while all this time is spent convincing others how terrible of a person I am... the people who are here, who are involved, don't need convincing of anything. So this year, I forgot - and maybe I won't ever remember again. Maybe, that is what I needed to show myself that while I spent all this time trying to keep it together... I had someone following closely behind ripping it all to pieces. That it is OK to have this terrible past of lies and deceit and abuse and pain - and that it doesn't define or shape who I am now, or what I deserve. And forgetting to take time out of my life to make a card for someone who would never have dreamed of doing the same, is okay. It's all part of the healing process, of letting it go.