forgiving

The End.  I stared at the bold type print I was holding.  Thoughts flooding me,  challenging me on my very own hopes and desires.  I had just finished reading my fifth romance novel of the summer.  Much to my surprise I was  hooked.   This story was a western romance.  Taking place in Deadwood, South Dakota during the gold rush boom, back in 1876.  A town I had visited many  years ago with my sons, on our first family vacation  with out their father.    A trip whose plans  began while I was still very much married.  A family trip out west that I had at onetime envisioned would draw me and my now ex-husband closer together.  A vacation, that instead, and in many ways, marked the beginning of my life as a single mother.

Deadwood, S.D. a tourist town now that draws crowds by the thousands each summer.  A place that  I simply  fell in love with many years ago  and hope to revisit again someday.  A colorful town boasting with the flavor of the old west.  I sat back still holding my book in my hands.  Wanting to savor the feelings its paragraphs had stirred in me.  Pulling myself back in thought to a time in this world that brought the strong characters of this romantic story to life.  A simpler time when we did not question our sexuality.  An era when survival demanded hard work. The west where strength, courage and integrity made boys into men and girls into women.

With my eyes closed I tried to envision main street coming alive. I  imagined women and men in their traditional roles.  Hunky cowboys as they casually rode into town, dusty and  perhaps a bit weary from traveling.  Tipping their Stetsons out of courtesy as they passed by a few females.   The towns few single  women  smiling back  and nodding  slightly in response with polite etiquette. Couples happily strolling along arm in arm while out for  an evening walk.   I smiled to myself, yes like it or not  I was hooked on these romance stories, dreaming and fantasizing as I read each one.  As a realist this is a very hard thing  for me to admit and accept.  I believe I  am  becoming a full bloomed romantic.  Starry eyed at the idea and finding my self lost in the silly romantic notions of being swept away by love. Filled with anticipation for the first kiss shared between  the main two characters. 

I closed the book and studied its cover.  No beautiful saloon girl or handsome rugged cowboy donned the front cover.  No lump of gold or stage coach pictured,  to give way of the journey that laid ahead in its over 400 hundred typed pages.  The title simply put, "Forgiving" was scrolled out in large deep rose colored letters. I was dawdling in after thought.  Love in its many vast ways had etched it way in my mind leaving  me dreaming.

I sat thinking,  what next.  Do I engage in yet another novel. Loose myself to yet another untamed heart of a character, doomed to embark on a journey exploding with deep emotion. Surely I needed to lay to rest for one day, these sordid love affairs I have been so drawn into reading about lately. 

A walk seemed a perfect answer to help me ease away from my new addiction. Not to mention a delight for my beautiful dog Bella to part take in. I chuckled as I attached her new flashing night time leash to her collar while thinking about my writing class experience last fall.  When my instructor told me to stop fighting the fact that I was a romantic.  "Surrender and stop hiding" she told me during  class one day, " and those stories locked inside will flow".  I was a bit bothered hearing those words at first.  Unconditional Love as a mother I new about, with no end to the words that illustrates my motherly passions.  But love between a couple- ooh that's a tough one. I openly admit I still struggle with putting on paper.  With a past full of  short lived romances and dating disappointments what could I possibly write.  Feeling somewhat -in  all  honesty-that  a captive heart for me would seem rather unlikely at this point, but not entirely impossible-after all I am a newly proclaimed romantic. I will somberly admit to those of you who might read this and  clearly spell out "I have known love",  but there is a profound connection to the heart I deeply desire.   As a  parent of two medically challenged and   terminally ill sons my journey will be met with great sorrow few will ever understand or be equipped to endure. Leaving me deeply guarded with my heartfelt emotions.

So here I was now completely absorbed into reading about the desires of the heart. But, still struggling with the ability to write anything that remotely mentions falling in love. With a child free night to myself, and no plans  I was at home alone with my romance books.  I looked down at the book again that I had laid to rest on my lap.  Its simple cover holding me captive momentarily.  The single word title triggering something in me. Drawing me into myself  I let my thoughts flow.  I felt a need to examine a little of my own soul.  Could it be that some of  my past actually made me  feel connected to the characters I recently read about.  I was beginning to understand why I found them so appealing.  I was beginning to see that I was not much different from them. Much more to my surprise I noticed something else.  These characters not only ardently desired love, but also were in great need of something more. 

It can be very enlightening and   amazing when you can make a connection, especially so deeply.     Yes, these characters needed healing.  Healing,  yes it was right there,  so simple.  As much I tried to hide it I was still in need of some healing too.   Even after all these years I still was in need of some mending.  which is not so easy to admit, because, that might just make me be a bit vulnerable.  Secondly, because I have become so engrossed in moving on and finding the courage to face my sorrow to come, I have not paid much attention to what the past  had been lacking for me in the first place.  So here it was simply laid out before me "Forgiving".  In order to continue with healing  I had to forgive.  But forgiving just who was the question?  No sooner had I read the word again and  it hit me, like a burst of sunlight. The one person I struggled with the most  was in fact me.  It is me that stands like a closed  window between my past and the present.  I  would need to  forgive myself to continue to heal.

 I have a very strong feeling I will  connect with  someone  who will in fact be touched by what I am writing about and  will  totally understand the depths of the "healing" I am referring too.  Powerful when you think about it.  It is me holding me back.  More empowering it is me who can lead me to change.  So I will keep putting my words out there.  I will keep reading my romance stories and I keep working on  healing.  Who knows maybe one day that romance story waiting to be unleashed  might just be my own.