I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I am too forgiving of a person. As though it is insulting to choose to see a human as being soft, broken, inconsistent; simply human. I believe my ability to forgive is one of the reasons I’m still able to hope in humanity. How heartbreaking of a place this world can be, yet how much more painful is it to live with anger and resentment at the messiness of humanness.

So instead, about ten years ago, I decided I would create a place where I could put all the yucky things that have happened to me. All the atrocities that have caused me to question the capacity of goodness in this world. And these yucky memories sit in a box that I created for the sole purpose of protecting the purity of hope in my heart. And for the most part, it has been the thing that’s saved me. That box has allowed me the space to hold the intensity of my anger and the debilitating sadness that accompanies it. I hate that box for the contents it holds but I love it that it can. I recognize that the box is me, not all of me, but pieces of me, and yet, to have a place to put the yucky allows me the freedom to still live and love.

I have such hope in this life and have grown to love the disappointing aspects of being an imperfect human. Because the reality of all this is rather simple, we are all here on this world to live in it. We are simple and complex and chaotic humans living among the very same and while that can lead to craters of resentment and hurricanes of despair, to choose a life loving people through the tumultuous is one of the greatest gifts you can offer anyone. And in the long run, one of the greatest gifts you can offer yourself.