One night when I was quite young, my Aunt was driving me home after we’d spent the weekend together.
“I’m sorry we have to take the long way, sweetie, but it’s important that I drive through this intersection,” she said.
You see, a few months prior,
she had been in a car accident.
And since the accident, she would go out of her way to drive through that same intersection.
It was her way of dismantling her fear; of reclaiming agency over the trauma she had been through.
On Sunday I went snowshoeing.
Before this, the last time I went snowshoeing
was almost two years ago. It was also,
The last time I saw my Sister.
For two years,
I’ve avoided a lot of things.
Places. Activities. Sounds. Smells.
Not because I’ve chosen to.
But because I couldn’t muster the energy
To find a way to face them.
To wake up and say,
“I’m ready for this hurt today”
But, here I was this past Sunday.
Trying to re-write the narrative.
Trying to find a way to laugh
while doing one of the activities
that oh so dearly makes me want to cry.
Sometimes that’s all we can ask for.
A moment where we’re ready to try.
