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Today [4/26/2025], I spoke to each my parents (respectively) about forgiveness. About what it would look like for each of them to forgive themselves. Versions of themselves they feel "fell short." Versions of them that they've yet to give grace to, even if those versions were in positions of disempowerment. Like their current selves. Like their childhood selves.

Both find themselves in places of stagnation similar to what I've written about here within the last few months and written elsewhere for the last year-and-some-change. Both parents, in their own ways, are in the lurch of "waiting for tomorrow," or as originally written in "Stagnation," feeling this simultaneous sense of potential energy that feels kinetic, and is therefore exhaustive. Of, as I wrote of just a few minutes ago in "To Stagnation: Thank You," frustration with the lessons between the two "presents:" the present of waiting pre-shift, and the present of waiting post-shift. Both are unsure of how exactly to "live" in the meantime. Neither feel they quite understand what this point in time is "supposed" to "mean." They haven't quite landed yet at the notion that these times of "stagnation" are actually times of (self) creation. Of understanding. Of forgiveness. Of understanding that each of those things is one-and-the-same.

I do not know how they define the term for themselves, but I define forgiveness as "the openness (to), willingness (to), and action of understand(ing)." It does not mean (to me) an unbridled acceptance and burying of the past, nor allowing continual access to oneself in the sake of "burying the hatchet" and "keeping the peace," which are sentiments that lend themselves to grander dynamics of power that oft lead to inciting or perpetuating harm. Forgiveness, to me, is simply understanding. It is allowing witness, moving through the arisen feelings, coming to conclusion and/or closure with necessary grace, and acting in accordance to this [new-/re-]found understanding and perspective. But the witnessing comes first for a reason. One cannot address (nor heal) a reality they cannot even bring themselves to face. Therefore, it is imperative to look. To feel. To sense. To oscillate. To remain curious—not to prove what one already believes themselves to "know," but to open themselves up to exploring what they may not recognize they see/feel/sense/oscillate (in) yet.

Thus, to forgive oneself is the openness to, willfulness to, and act of understand(ing) oneself. To witness oneself. Even if it is uncomfortable. Even if it is difficult. Because the shift we seek, because freedom, is on the other side of the illusions of comfort we learn and build for ourselves (or have built for us, and vice versa) that led to the stagnation period, the period needed to reevaluate and self-(re)discover and (re)create, in the first place. Led to these perpetuating cycles. Led to the guilts and hurts and shames that crescendo their voices in the stillness and quiet. And the way to move through that is to be as still. To be as quiet. To listen. To learn. To question. To reflect. To face the things you thought would end you and realize afterwards that you still remain. The only thing lost was the illusion. You learn that you are not the illusion. You are you. And you can thank the illusion for carrying you as far as it did, let it know you don't need it anymore, let the version of you tied to it know that you now forgive (as in "now understand") it, let them both rest, and step squarely into your present reality. Your present truth.

Forgiveness here does not mean one will automatically return to the old habits, circumstances, and perspectives just because they understand them better. It does not mean they absolve themselves of all of their actions, including and especially those that involved others outside of themselves. It does not mean they "revert" into some "lesser" versions of themselves. It means they understand that along each step of the way, they believed themselves (and their relationship to their circumstances) to be within a certain framework/context and acted in that accordance, doing what they believed themselves capable of doing based on that information, aligning and ascribing that action to what they read as the closest approximation to what they then understood as physical and emotional safety at the time. It means understanding there is no "lesser" version of themselves. There was always a version doing the best they could with what they had and what level of belief they have in their ability to navigate themselves and their circumstances regarding their relationship to safety and need. Understanding that that was always the foundation. Understanding that foundations can be built upon in different ways. Understanding that in now having new-or-unearthed understanding, and a growing trust in oneself (that comes from the willingness to witness and understand in the first place), with new-or-unearthed physical and emotional skillsets, equipments, and circumstance, they can choose differently. Understanding that they are not beholden to the old stories and fears and circumstances. Understanding that they are as dynamic as life itself, which is why it is enough to live. Which is why the present is enough. Which is why they are enough. Because each exist in the dynamicism of life right now.

Today is already as alive as tomorrow. It is already alive and happening. You are already alive and happening. Yesterday is as alive and happening as long and fervently as your denial of its ever happening endures; it will continue to show up in your todays and tomorrows until neither feel like themselves. Yesterday, of all the tenses, is the most insistent on being itself; it will make all other tenses become it, at whatever volume helps it persist. It will continue to show up until you witness and sit with it. Until you forgive it. Until you forgive you.

Bear witness to it. All of it. The whole of you. The whole of your journey. Understand that as the Love that it is. And step into your present.

You will be amazed at how quiet, and content, yesterday becomes.

How pleasant today is.

How quickly you realize tomorrow is already here.

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A photo of letter tiles (like from the games "Scrabble" or "UpWords) on a white background. The base word is "Understand," with the word "Listen" connected to its "e," and the word "Act" connected to its "a."

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It's been about two months since my post on stagnation, and I've transmuted quite a bit since.

The main thing that I realized during this "slingshot" period is that instead of focusing on the tension and resistance, it is more helpful (for me) to focus on what exists in the silence/stillness around me. That part of what builds that tension is the continual search for signs and signals that the reality I already understand as "on the horizon" is approaching/here, when the real call is to rest in what is present. And at first it felt redundant, for the lesson right before this one was on being present. But that's the key of the nuance—being present in waiting for a shift, and being present in having shifted but waiting to see the results of the shift are two different "presents." They are different forms of patience. Because the key to the latter isn't actually "waiting to see." It's "be present in living, and watch it find you." It's an extension of a test; a different look at commitment. It is (for me, comparatively) easier to be present pre-shift because you [I] can't really feel the pressures of the next reality yet. The FOMO isn't quite as high. But when you [I] do[/did] feel it, the test now becomes: "can you still devote yourself, without rush or lack of grace, to your physical present while you feel your 'future' on the horizon, and trust it (and yourself) enough to meet you?" Because doing as such, being able to be in and appreciate all the offerings and lessons of the present, lay a precedent for being able to find and appreciate all the offerings and lessons in what lies ahead. The continual waiting for "what's next" and impatience with our present not being the futures we're imagining and feeling our inhabitance in creates a pattern and habit for not appreciating and sitting in/with things that we once longed for (and have potentially since gotten used to). It creates an idea that our present inhabitance is perpetually "not enough," and that better is "always" on the horizon and "cannot" be found here in "any" capacity—as if the present itself doesn't have any potentiality. As if the present itself isn't a very building block for the future we're longing to usher in. Which is not its sole purpose (which is the underlying lesson)—the sole purpose is "no" purpose. It is the wonder of the act of Being itself. And opening ourselves up to the wonder of today is what brings the wonder of tomorrow inherently. They are predicated upon one another. So, the main takeaway was "even as you feel tomorrow, can you bring yourself to still rest in and appreciate today?" And I can, and I have, and I shall continue to. And I'm deeply thankful for this time of "stagnation" (aka preparation, aka existing) for that.

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A gif of a person in a beige t-shirt and black slacks sitting on a grassy hill that's dotted with dandelions. The sky is clear and bright blue. The person has a fully bloomed daisy as a head and the flower's stem as their neck. A wind blows gently across the whole scene, moving the person's petals and clothes, as well as the hill's dandelions.

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I have struggled for a while with the notion of stagnation. Not in its original sense of "I do not feel like I am moving at the designated pacing this capitalistic hellscape demands of us," but in a "I always feel like I'm on the precipice of something, and it is frustrating to feel that while that isn't in the visual presence of my physical reality. And I think many people would classify that as a [lack of/diminishing] faith, which isn't necessarily the case—I fully believe in life getting better than this, but an exhaustion sets in when that feels like a yo-yo-ing fate. The closest I've gotten to being able to articulate what it feels like is simply tension—like the dissonance between where I can already envision and feel myself in a reality other than this one and the physicality of my current embodied place is physically and emotionally building all this potential energy that somehow feels kinetic. Like a pulled rubber band/slingshot or a HotWheels pulled to its wind-up capacity just before being let go. Like I'm a Stretch Armstrong toy and my (past &) present and my future are playing tug-of-war with me—even though I understand my future will ultimately prevail, that doesn't make me any less aware of the tension. And in true situationally ironic fashion, having this constant build-up of energy leaves me with no energy—like it's all simultaneously present and used at every moment, meaning that even if I want to do something, I burn out quickly at the thought and even quicker at the attempt. So, I feel like I'm doing everything and nothing as time goes by, with constant(ly grating) outside reminders that I only look like the latter. It is a lot.

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One version of the "Rattled" meme. It is a rocking chair in the shape of a (screaming) skeleton with multiple forms of motion blur over it to make it appear as if it is moving at warp speed. In the left foreground of the image is a close-in of the screaming skeleton's face, tinted red and with glowing eyes as if in complete turmoil and damnation. 