No Regrets
“Never regret something that once made you smile.” ~ Amber Deckers
My bedside table has a closet where I store some books and journals. I was looking for a certain poem that I wrote about a decade ago when I saw the stack of journals. I started scouring through all these journals of yesteryears. Most of them were dated 2010- 2012. I could not remember writing most of the contents. I was astonished by how much I’ve written on those journals– mostly through prose and poetry.
There were pages and pages of entries– about joy, friendships, heartaches, ambiguity, love and forgiveness, and pains I don’t even remember I had. The heartaches I survived. I read through stories– poetry after poetry, and prose by prose. I was completely dazed by my writings.
“I actually wrote that?!”.
“That really happened? I actually went through that?”
“I was upset then, because why?”
There were also quotes that I have written from my mentors and writers of that time.
“Make yourself vulnerable to your emotions” ~ from a mentor
“It’s so hard to defy what your heart is telling you.” ~ ME (?)
“It ends here. It starts now” ~ ME again (?)
“Love shouldn’t hurt.” ~ Anonymous
“[You know you are healed] when the love that you feel is more powerful than the loss.” ~ Anonymous (?)
“When the karma of a relationship is done, only love remains. It’s safe. Let go.” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert
All those entries, some were forgotten; but most, if not all, were forgiven.
There was a quote I came across with on social media: “When you can tell a story and it doesn’t make you cry, you know you are healed” ~ Anonymous
Wow! Healed from the pains of distant past!
Fast forward 6-7 years. I am still staring at these journals, shaking my head.
If I could heal then, I could heal now. It will take a lot of work on my part– forgiveness, self-care, self-love. Journaling. Keep on writing. Poetry. Keep. On. Writing.
Because in the future, when I look back, I’m pretty certain I will repeat these words, “I survived this. It’s safe. You’re safe. Let go.”
Originally posted on December 20,2019
