I have no idea where this post is gonna go, so just bear with me here.

You see, last week or so, I made a plan. I was going to use this 40 days of Lent to do some major self-forgiveness. To take time each and every day to say “hey past Amy, I forgive you for…” When I was in my earliest 20s and told that I’d probably never conceive a child without medical intervention, I didn’t really dwell on it. But then, the months ticked by, rolling into endless years. I dwelled a bit more each and every day. I carried it quietly for a very long time, not even talking to my husband about it. I became a terrible homemaker. I became a depressed wife. I became something that just isn’t ME. But, it is. Or…was. Now, I have my beautiful daughter, who is somehow almost 10 months old already and I’m supposed to be living that dream that I yearned for. But I can’t.

That long 15 years is literally piled up around me. Our home is cluttered chaos. A real life episode of Hoarders. But I didn’t hoard for any other reason than I was just trying to quiet the haunting echoes of the pitter patter of tiny feet. The giggles of delight from a tiny human. I was trying to fill the empty spaces in this little house so that I wouldn’t feel the emptiness of my womb.

I spent years in a form of self torture working in preschools, caring for and even loving other peoples children as if they were my own. I pretended that it helped my aching heart but looking back…well, that was bullshit. I don’t really know what it was, except hard.

So, now that I’ve got my girl, I’m ready and it is time, to heal from my past trauma. That’s right, I said trauma. I will not soften my words to avoid hurting someone else’s feelings. I will not be using any “trigger warnings.”

Day by day, I will dismantle the piles that surround me, the mess that has been living rent free in my soul, and I will say “Hey, Amy. I forgive you for this.”

O, there are moments when we half forget
The rough, harsh grating of the file of Time;
And I believe that angels come down yet
And walk with us, as in the Eden clime;
Binding the heart, away from woe and strife,
With leaves of healing from the Tree of Life.
~Alice Carey, “Harvest Time,” c.1847