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The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Mahatma Gandhi

When I round the curve in the road, my thoughts unexpectedly go back to her and that not so long ago time when she was the “other”. The past lingers for just a moment then disappears as the road straightens and I head for home.

Each week, I return to the space that provides solace and heat. A place in that not so long ago time that seemed to call my name. The road was dark then, the route unknown. Each visit an escape hatch from pain.

Perhaps I was conceited enough to believe that he would never leave-never mind deceive. Then we became another cliché. Middle-aged man leaves wife and kids for younger woman. How trite and how true.

The knowledge came in bits and pieces. An off-handed remark made by a close relative. Phone calls saying he needed to help a friend.  Concentrated text messaging during our son’s sports game. A trip out of the country that appeared to happen as an unplanned event.

Then he said her name and it became all too real. Well, you can’t put words back in a box once they’ve been hung in the air. I felt slayed. Chopped up. Diced into tiny pieces. Shattered like broken glass. Tossed into the trash.

And then we met. Quite by accident. On a cold, dark holiday eve. A face to her name. Polite exchanges and then an awkward and quick exit.

It is hard to hold your head up when you feel like you’ve been slapped in the face. It is hard to stand up straight when you feel like you’ve been punched in the gut.

I needed to detox, to purge. So I took to the only path that would help peel the pain away. The space of healing energy and consolation.

Then she appeared once and again over time. In that sacred space. Ironically, it was easy to be gracious then; perhaps because she had cast him aside. Friends and relatives were aghast at my charitable demeanor while in her company. But it would have been too easy to take the low road. Did I really want or need to speak of him or treat her in a degrading way?

Certainly it would be simple to converse with someone in this way. Someone who had been naked with your husband. Easy to cause her discomfort or guilt. But I had moved on. Grown confident inwardly. Better to show healthy growth than to sow bad seeds.

Since then, there have been others with him. The door may have been a revolving one; and still could be if only in his mind. I need no “others”. I need only myself so that I may love and trust one other.

The sacred space is mine now. I share the energy with other souls bound for the glory of feeling grounded and balanced. We renew one another as we journey down our own paths; some curved others straight. Always honoring the light of one another.

“I use memories but I will not allow memories to use me.”

~  Deeprak Chopra