Give Yourself Grace

Inspired by Dilruba Ahmed

I Forgive You

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

For not wiping the counters last night,

I forgive you.

I forgive you for letting the pot boil over, 

and not noticing 

Roomba is off his charger.

    When preparing healthy meals 

becomes tedious instead of a pleasure,

scraping scraps, life in leftovers,

I forgive you for eating a pretzel bar,

and then succumbing to 

hapless entertainment after a day of wearying chores, 

not remembering your good fortunes 

others only dream of.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

I forgive you for choosing the privileged response over gratitude,

for wanting more, 

or wanting less,

for being the first to smell the garbage

and the last to smell the flowers.

When you misplace your phone

I forgive that you panic before you reason.

Trust yourself. You are not losing it.

     I forgive you for wanting to please, 

for responding with a thoughtless “Yes!”

rather than forming a thoughtful 

“No, thank you.”

I forgive you. 

For wanting to tell people 

how to live, 

for allowing “you should” to

enter your mind and leave your mouth.

I forgive you.

For not always being present, 

for forgetting to focus with care  and concern, 

for starting another paragraph before responding to yours,

for asking personal questions that are nobody’s business,  

     I forgive you. 

Forgiveness is taking a breath, 

relaxing the eye sockets, 

unhinging the jaw, 

opening the throat

lifting the shoulder blades and rotating them back,

encouraging the scapulae to kiss, 

lifting the torso, 

making room for the heart

expanding  the spine,

accepting skin, belly, and thighs without rebuke,

reconnecting with Mother Earth,

 and just beginning again.

Photo by Colton Sturgeon on Unsplash

For caring more about doing than being,

For allowing life’s imperfections to

detract from life’s precious moments 

never to be repeated, 

I forgive you.

      I forgive you.

      I forgive you.

Inspired by Dilruba Ahmed