Taken in Winston-Salem earlier this month.

I have become a devoted listener to podcasts from Zencast.org and in one of the lectures I listened to on a recent 15-mile training walk, the speaker spoke of an exercise where he asked participants to think about what they would do if they knew they only had 24 hours to live.  This number was then reduced to twelve, then went down to four and ultimately one.  He said one person quit her job the next week and another person admitted that it wasn’t until the time got down to one hour that going home to clean her house didn’t make it on her final to do list.

That very evening someone close to a family member was diagnosed with a brain anyeurism and had to go immediately into brain surgery.  The combination of these two events – hearing this lecture and learning of this sudden turn in someone’s life – made me think about what I might do if I were faced with a similar situation.  If I had to prepare myself for a life-threatening surgery, knowing I might not make it through the procedure, what would I want to do?  Having to go into some kind of surgery is a pretty specific scenario, which would take away most options I might want, so this turned into the question of who would I want to call and what would I want to say?

My list was pretty short, but it came to a screeching halt when I thought of a certain someone.  While the thought of contacting this person now feels viscerally out of the question, I knew I would not hesitate if I were in this hypthetical situation, and as much as this person hurt me I knew I would not hesitate to say the words "I forgive you."  From there I could not help but ask myself why I don’t do that now – that if it would be important enough to say that before I might die, what is stopping me from saying it immediately? 

I am still pondering this question, but my gut feeling is that I can’t do it now because I am simply not ready to, because the honest truth is that while I am working on complete forgiveness and letting go of all the pain from the past, I do not feel at all comfortable with the idea that my saying this might open some door of communication.  I do not want a relationship with this person and do not want to give this person any opportunity whatsoever to say anything to me ever again, because the last words spoken to me were among the most hurtful that I have ever received.  I was taken completely off guard this weekend when the idea was offered to me that I just might have to confront this person again at some point in my life.  I felt a huge well of emotion surging inside of me as if a hidden geyser decided to make itself known with full force.  It was all I could do not to have a complete meltdown right then and there, and I realized then that my journey towards completely letting all of this go is still a ways off despite all the progress I have made.

Knowing this tightness still exists in myself around this person and recent events between us, it still gave me a strange sense of comfort to know I would not hesitate to make that phone call if I had to.  As if there were some possible future self in a hopefully won’t-ever-become-real situation that would do the right thing.  That I might not be her yet, but she exists, and that if I know she exists I am able to trust I am on the right path, that I will eventually become wise enough to say those words entirely without fear and completely without expectations.  She is out there with open arms, and right now she is telling me it is OK to take my time.  She’ll be there when I need her.