Member-only story
A Deeper Peace
“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die” — Anonymous
I took my child to Urgent Care today. She got hurt ice skating at her dad’s house. While filling out the paperwork, I had to check my phone for her social security number. I used to keep it in the Notes App (don’t do that, by the way). While searching for it, I came across a scanned copy of the entries my ex annotated from my private journals. It was like a three-year-old ghost popping up to say, “Hey! Remember when that trauma happened?”
After the appointment, I read through them again — they had headings like “Lack of Shame” and “Abandonment of the Marriage,” accompanied by direct quotes from my diaries.
I laughed. Of course I had no shame there — it was my safe space! When these entries began circulating around our community, I felt so raw.
They (my then friends and ex) warned me, “hoped I’d be okay” and told me to re-read the words I had in those journals, and really “take them in” like they were telling a goblin to look in the mirror and take in his own ugliness, if he was brave enough.
Well. I did. I did it fearfully at first, but what I found was not a monster to be afraid of, but a version of me who needed to be understood. I found a Samaritan Woman at…
