It's always this time of year that I hunker down to write New Year's resolutions. About three years ago I stopped doing that and instead began doing a "Best/Worst of" list of the year where I would list what was good about the year and what was awful. This year though I didn't want to do it anymore. I didn't want to dream of what I could do better, what I had accomplished in the space of 365 days, or what I had failed at as another 12 months had passed me by. My life is so much bigger than that and so much more rich than a list of anything can possibly express.
For this new year I want to simply make the most of it and use the time to reflect on all the years before it. This is a very big year to me and it wasn't supposed to be so but over the years it just kept building in momentum until I'm standing at the precipice of something much bigger than me. I've gained a peek at God's path for me and it feels so...what's the word I want to use...sometimes enlightening, sometimes justified, and sometimes overwhelming. I have learned a whole lot about myself in the short span of time called a year, a blip in the yawning distance of eternity. I have given myself a hard honest look as a human being, not as a black or biracial woman, not as a sister, or a daughter, a niece, a cousin, a nurse, an aunt, or a friend. I examined myself as I saw me and rationalized with my own expectations and found myself here, at the beginning of a new chapter long over due.
My father's illegitimate son found my Facebook page and reached out to me. It was the first time I ever called into question my decision not to know him. If I was being fair to him for placing upon his head his parent's crimes against me and my life and made the first revelation about my character in the two page letter I wrote him back. His response was the first acceptable closure I got in my life. I have to move on and I don't have to have approval from those that know me or those that don't, it's not about my father or the woman he slept with, it is about me. We will never be siblings through no fault of my own and I am perfectly content with that. Whether his life is good or bad I have no control over that nor do I wish to have it.
Another thing happened among a thousand. I stopped making the people in my life saints and accepted, dead or alive that we are only human. It was a change for me because along with the elevated pedestal I put my family on, particularly those in heaven, came an overwhelming guilt for not giving MORE of myself to them while they were alive. I don't owe my life or happiness to anyone. I can't blame the lack thereof on anyone either. As stated earlier, it is hard to say goodbye but by letting go I will finally open myself up to all the rest that I've been missing.
