“I forgive everybody.”

My friend Jamey said that to me a long time ago. He is wild and wise. The kind of guy who makes his own M-80s, taught himself how to play the stock market and is probably the most serious guitar player I’ve ever known - which is saying something. His words were on repeat in my mind today as I drove home from visiting my parents for the first time in nearly a year. We had lunch in a park. Distanced. It crossed my mind that if someone had captured a photo of the three of us - all sitting just far enough away from each other, masked in a clearing by the river.. it would have captured our true relationship a little too perfectly. It made me sad. It made me wish things were different. I am their only child and I often feel like Pluto. Way out there orbiting beyond the asteroid belt while everyone back on earth debates its status as this or that. This distance has gotten worse over time and it is largely my own fault. No one was pushing. I was just drifting. Searching. When I was drinking the distance was more behavioral and less physical. Putting on airs. Acting as if. Being highly defensive. Once I quit and was attempting to heal from everything I was drinking about in the first place I just kind of quit calling home unless I was guilted into it or it was dictated by a holiday. I have been focused on our differences and the inherited trauma that comes from having a family. Any family - I think. I have been wanting someone to answer for everything I’ve been wading through. I’ve been angry. On my drive home though I thought about how all my problems did not start with me.. Justifying the distance. But that also means my parents problems did not start with them either.. I could hear Jamey’s voice “I forgive everybody.” and I have to wonder - what if it really is that easy? I sure want it to be. I have changed my life in nearly every aspect over the past few years. Forgiving them and myself feels like the last piece of the puzzle.

Day 297: Brown rice cakes with avocado mashed with yogurt and nutritional yeast, slices of baked sweet potato, alfalfa sprouts and seedy mustard.