For those who may attend church on a regular, semi-regular or who might even be on a "once in a blue moon" status, you may recall your church offering a time to offer peace to those around you. "Peace be with you" is what I say to others and what others say back to me. It's that brief moment during the mass or service when you can acknowledge those around you. It gives us that moment when humanity can be in its purest form.
Today as I looked around during this moment, I saw a person who may or may not have caused me a lot of professional and personal pain. She certainly was involved in some way with my professional demise. To the extent I'll never know, nor 15 months later, feel that I want to know the exact details.
I still ruminate from time to time about the events of the spring of 2025. I've had to work really hard at remembering to let go, to "let them," and keep moving forward. With the school year ending, all the one year anniversaries are over. I've felt guilty lately about my almost daily thinking of these memories. I start to think about the pain of how parents go through trauma with the loss of a child and hearing them say, "A day will never go by without us thinking about him." This is when the guilt crashes down hard as I begin to feel badly about comparing my pain with the pain of more horrible events. I don't want to think about this horrible time of my life every day.
15 months ago, I let these memories take over my life. Right now, they are just like tiny little jabs that cast a momentary shadow on my day. Somehow I let them find their way into my thoughts and after a few moments, just shake it off. I needed professional help to get to this point where I could swat them away and get on with my day. I wish I could say with confidence that one day I'll be fully over it, but I suppose it's energy better served if I continue to deal with my trauma and limiting them to screenshots of my day, and not think about if they'll ever fully go away.
Seeing this person today literally made it hard for me to say or think anything about peace. About a month ago, she reached out via text. I was so traumatized by just seeing the first sentence of the text, I needed my wife to read to text. I remember saying to her, "Is this going to make me upset?" I remember her saying, "No, it's actually quite nice." She was sharing a one year memory with me regarding students. I did reply back cordially. Today, once we locked eyes on each other, we both kindly waved in acknowledgement of each other.
I like to think of myself who doesn't want nor has enemies. I want people to be happy. I want people to find peace for themselves. However, as I still deal with ruminating over the ending of one career, I am grateful to say that currently I have found peace with my new one. This feels good to say, although I'm still very much a work in progress in allowing myself to find peace with how I got here.