Full Circle 

I hope one day when you are older, you can look back and smile at all of this chaos that keeps our hands tied together. I hope you can look back through my eyes and understand, despite my mistakes that were blindfolded with good intentions, I was trying my hardest to give you the world I never had. I was trying to give you everything, and in the midst of this madness, I failed. I’m sorry for that. I came from a place where love was money and things being thrown my way so I would stay out of the way. I am still learning that’s not love at all. I hope you know that I tried to rip myself open to pull out the ruin, before it could be passed along to you, but sometimes the mania stitched me back up and laughed, before I could collect every piece from the crash inside. I spent so much time trying to make sure you never became a carbon copy of me, I somehow ended up turning that into a full circle reality of the landing from my fall, and it’s a long one. I learned a lesson from this, as the lesson taught you how to be me, and I know you don’t deserve to wear shoes like that. I learned that I was never in a place to try to give you the world, before I found it myself. I never found it, and so you learned to be lost like me, misunderstood like me, feel it all on your sleeve like me. I’m sorry for that. I promise you this: there is nothing in the world I wouldn’t tear apart to give you a smile that never lies. I want you to look at everything and see the good in it, instead of spotlighting the bad, instead of constantly thinking your cup is empty. I want you to hold that cup as if it’s overflowing with so much. You deserve that. Because whether you believe it now or not, your life is just beginning and the whole world is yours; just reach for it… just reach for it.  -Stephanie Bennett-Henry © 2016