amendment
Sometimes you fuck up so hard, so fast, so shamelessly that there’s no chance of second chances from those you’ve hurt so recklessly.
Some wounds are so wide, so deep, so jagged that there’s no way to suture them.
Sometimes even saying “I’m sorry” twists the blade in deeper than where it started.
What do you say then? What do you do when it happens?
Do you beg? Do you plead? Do you put all your fragile-shelled desires into one basket of desperate longing? Do you bend your body until it becomes the apology? Do you bleed your heart out across an altar to a god of vengeance that will not be appeased?
Or do you commit yourself to the harder task of changing?
It’s a kind of change that happens quietly. Sometimes slowly. It happens without earning anything. Without announcement, gesture, or redemption. It’s in the small, unremarkable movements without witness. When no one’s watching. In the unglamorous gestures of becoming someone different.
Sometimes the only way to make amends is to turn yourself into the kind of person who deserves it.
May you carry the courage to change before you’re asked to.
May the quiet work be the only thing that matters, even when no one’s looking.
May you shift yourself into someone you’re not ashamed to be.
In case no one’s told you today, I love you with all my everything.
**I unashamedly stole the title “somewhere beneath the damage” from Charity Whan’s poem “The Dreamers”
**special thanks to my good friend and fellow collage maker Stephen Tomasko for giving me a piece of source material to use in making “the solution which began” during Kolaj Fest
p.s. - I added a new print to my shop.
I still hold the shameful robes of the man I used to be. To disregard them would be dishonest. They serve as a reminder that everything changes, including people. Sometimes for the better. I have had to learn to lean into that mirror and see myself, for better or worse, and own it. I cannot unwind the past. It is a tangled mess. But I can take to heart the painful, regretful,and embarrassing lessons it has taught me. Lessons bought and paid for. I see your struggle. I feel your angst. For that was/ is me. We are pilgrims on the same path. Can I come along side you?
The messiness of being human...thank you for sharing. Also, gorgeous collages! As usual! That little flash of a red 4 really gets me, ha!