I love my daughter so much. I love her more than I could ever even fathom.
Avery and I have been going to counseling for several months to get through things. Thank goodness for Children First Counseling Center in Grand Prairie, who have provided the most amazing counselor for Avery during this time. We've been working on feelings and how it's OK to have feelings. It's OK to express them. She's helped me as I've talked to Avery about what's going on in her life and has been a good sounding board for me. A few weeks ago, Angela asked if I would join Avery's sessions because Avery's been having difficulty expressing herself. She thought maybe if she saw me expressing myself, we could work on her doing the same. I did and for the last couple weeks we've been doing counseling together. She's been complaining about a tummy ache since last week, and night before last, she woke up in the middle of the night and began vomiting. She didn't go to school yesterday and was home with me. I looked at my child, with no fever and no symptoms of being ill, and realized that what she was experiencing was anxiety and stress.
I couldn't stand it. Looking at a 7 year old who has stress and is vomiting as a result broke my heart. We've been talking about dad and his new wife. She's confused about how she should feel about any of it. She knows what happened hurt me and it made me sad. She feels a huge need to protect me. I knew, laying in bed next to me beautiful, gorgeous, kindhearted child, what I had to do.
I picked up my phone and reached out to her new stepmom.
She and I have talked before and it's not gone well. Jason and I haven't been able to have good communication throughout all of this. I've just been so hurt. So upset. But the time came last night that I knew Avery was never going to be OK if I wasn't OK. I have expressed my feelings on the past. I have been mad and angry. But we are here, now, and it's not going to ever go back. I felt a weight lifted from my heart and realized in that moment that things inside me had changed.
I had forgiven.
Her stepmom, my ex-husband's new wife, and I talked for a long time about Avery and concerns for her well-being. We are by no means friends and probably never will be, but we are now on the same team, for Avery's sake. And it felt really great.
The beauty of telling kids the truth about hurt and pain is that you get to then teach them about compassion, forgiveness and empathy. I hope that me modeling that to her, she can learn to stand up for truth, speak truth and trust her instincts, but then to let go and move on.
This situation has really, really sucked. I can't change that. But I did realize that I have the ability to make it better....if I let things go. It's hard to let go of the righteous anger. It's hard to move past things that people have done to hurt you. But there comes a time in everyone's life they experience the feeling of being at a fork in the road. I came to that fork last night. And I was able to take the right path that was best for Avery and that would be the healthiest for myself.
I just wanted to share that today. Not because I need accolades or people to tell me what a big person I am, but because I think there are people out there who have found themselves in the same situations of needing to forgive but haven't been able to let it go. It took me some time, but I got here. And it feels really good.
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