Sarah Smith’s Path to Healing

Hello you,

I would love to call you sweet or lovely, but I know you don’t want that.

I have given you a week. I have given you a week to run and hide. I have given you a week in which I did not ask you to do anything or force you to walk my path with me. I have given you a week to do what you wanted to do.
The thing is… you haven’t done anything.

You haven’t sabotaged me, you haven’t hurt me, and you haven’t done anything that would make me hate you. You’ve taken this week to just be you. You watched series that made you happy, and you actually cared for yourself.

I was the one who resented you. I felt like you weren’t doing enough. We weren’t working on our goals. We weren’t pushing forward. We weren’t moving.
I hated you because I thought you were sabotaging me.
I thought you were spending the money I saved to stop me from going to Scotland next month. I thought you weren’t doing anything, just watching series because you didn’t want me to build a future.

I wanted to write this post to tell you how disappointed I am in you.
I wanted to tell you how disappointed I am that you went back to your ways as a teenager, when you hid from the world by reading books and being so oblivious to everything else, that you used it to run away from your pain and the reality that you were living in.

But I don’t feel like that’s what you’re doing this time.

This time, it feels like you are trying to help me get comfortable with the reality I’m living in right now.
You showed me that it’s OK to take a time out.
You showed me movies and series that embody the kind of relationships I want to have in my life.
You didn’t run away. You used your coping mechanism to help me see my goals again and gave me a chance to just sit for a moment and enjoy how far I’ve come.

I was so high and mighty, thinking I was better than you because, “Look, I was able to rectify what you broke.”
But was it really that?
Or did you allow yourself to take a time out because you knew I would be able to handle it?
Did you spend the money on necessary things because you knew I’d earn it back?
Did you dare to show me what you wanted through media because you knew I would try to give it to you?
Did you allow yourself to have this week because you knew I’d be OK with giving it to you?

Have you finally learned to trust me?

Have I become someone my teenage self would feel safe with?

I’m sorry for being so judgemental.
I didn’t realise that there could be two sides to this, and I just saw the old pattern, and what happened when I didn’t stop it, instead of trying to figure out how this could be helping me and why this pattern showed up.

I was so stressed, and still am, that I didn’t dare take time for me.
Today, and this whole week, you gave me that.
You gave me moments of pure joy. Moments where I felt so good about myself that I wanted to share it with others.
Moments of me.

Thank you for that.

And I’m sorry for judging you without trying to understand.
I’ll do better next time.

Lots of love,
Me