Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131486 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“You have to make peace with that woman, Yasmen, because she is you. She’s not someone you banished with therapy and meds. She is you. You cannot dissociate from her. Until you reconcile that, you won’t find true peace. Until you have compassion for her instead of judgment, you cannot fully heal.”
She grabs her pen and pad from the side table, lifts her head, and stares me down. “So let’s set a date.”
“A date? For what?”
“We need to put it on the calendar, the day you’re going to forgive yourself and get about the business of living your life.”
“Um, pretty sure it doesn’t work like that.”
“It can work like that. You can’t change what has already happened. What you did or decided. So you have two choices. Wallow in it, stay in the chokehold of guilt and shame that holds you back from the next phase of your life”—she taps the pad with the pen—“or decide you’ve punished yourself long enough for things you can never change and set a date when you’ll forgive yourself and move forward.”
How could it be that simple? My chest tightens and my breath shortens and my head starts spinning again, and I understand.
It’s a cycle.
It will come back around, this crippling guilt, this enormous shame, as long as I let it, but nothing will ever change. The futility of it angers me because while I’m sitting here unable to breathe, punishing myself every day, my life is waiting for me. I must embrace the necessity of finding joy in the borders of my own soul, sketching the parameters of contentment along the lines of my heart and myself. Not because everything is perfect with my kids. Things will never be perfect. I have to let go of perfect. Not because I’m guaranteed a happily ever after. Maybe one day I can get Josiah back. Maybe, against all odds, he’ll give me another chance. Or he may never love me again. Even if he doesn’t, I can’t live like this. There is a corner of my heart, a room in my soul, where I must choose joy just for me and just because I want to be free of this. I want to heal, to be the best, most complete version of myself for my children, for my mother, for my friends.
Most of all, for me.
So when will I forgive myself and be about the business of making the life I deserve, even when I don’t feel I do deserve that life?
I lift my head, swipe at the tears lingering on my cheeks, and nod to the pen poised over Dr. Abrams’s pad.
“Today,” I say. “Write down ‘today.’”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Josiah
It’s Deja’s fourteenth birthday, and I’m surprised by how emotional I am about it.
I blame Musa.
He may have me a little too in touch with my feelings because when I woke up this morning, I pulled up photos of the day my daughter was born. Starting with the trip to the hospital. Yasmen insisted we capture everything, so I have dozens of pictures documenting her labor progression, going from a tight smile in the first, to an irritated scowl, to finally a full-on-wrath photo with her mouth stretched open on a bellow. I can laugh about it now, but it was our first pregnancy. I was scared shitless. What did I know about being a father? I’d had so little time with mine, I just knew I’d screw it up. That I’d fail Deja, disappoint Yasmen. I hadn’t been able to express it then. So I basically grunted my way through that nine months, sure that I would break out in hives, my anxiety was so high by the end.
I can’t take all the credit for the beautiful young woman bouncing down the staircase, hair big and curly, lips pink and shiny with gloss, but I didn’t ruin her.
Not yet at least.
“Daddy!” Dejah practically hurls herself down the last two steps and into my arms.
The air whoofs out of me as I absorb the impact of her small frame. My arms tighten around her and pull her even closer. She’s precious. Defiant. Strong-willed. Hardheaded and sometimes downright petty, but she’s mine, and anyone who wants to fuck with her has to go through me first.
“I can’t breathe,” she fake chokes.
“Brat.” I give her a shake before releasing her. “Happy birthday, squirrel.”
Her surprised eyes lift to mine. “You haven’t called me that since I was a kid.”
“News flash. You’re still a kid. Fourteen ain’t grown.”
She’s right, though. I haven’t called her that in years. She used to be so quick as a toddler, scampering from place to place. Before we could reach her, she was off to some other life-threatening adventure. At least to me, as a first-time dad, everything felt life-threatening.
“It’s cute,” she says. “But please don’t call me that in front of my friends.”