Brave Enough to Give a Little Grace
What if I'm a better human *because* of the mistakes that I've made?
I got the word “grace” tattooed on my arm on my 31st birthday.
Whenever anyone asked why that word, I’d say what was true: It was a reminder to give others more grace; to remember that, more often than not, the people who annoyed and even angered me weren’t inherently bad and perhaps would benefit from a little grace, from my empathy and understanding, instead.
That is what was true; that is why I got that tattoo. But, of course, it was also more than that. Though I need to be reminded as often as any to give grace to other people, the more significant reason behind this permanent reminder, I think, was so I’d remember to give it to myself.
The book Conscious Uncoupling came out not long before I began seriously considering an uncoupling of my own. Though the phrase was often razzed in the media (thanks in no small part to the celebrity endorsement of Gwyneth Paltrow), I sincerely wondered if it were actually possible; if I could unravel the many stitches that joined my then-husband and me together as consciously, as seamlessly, as we had sewn them.
I saw the book on a shelf at Vroman’s, my then local bookstore, and bought it quickly, barely thinking. Though our relationship hadn’t been solid for some time, neither he or I had considered — at least, not out loud, not to each other — that we were ready to end it.
I read little bits here and there for a while, but I never ended up finishing it. Though valuable in theory, I’m sure, the concepts weren’t exactly something one can put into practice on their own — and honestly, I wasn’t ready to read them.
Instead I began the process in my own way, the only way I knew how at the time: by pulling away, by closing off, by being cold and sometimes cutting in conversation. Not always, of course, and never intentionally — or rather, not consciously — but still.
Though, in the scheme of things, our marriage ended without much commotion, we didn’t necessarily uncouple in the “conscious” way I had hoped we could. There were more harsh words and cold shoulders — things we said and things we didn’t — that made it that much easier for us to eventually fall apart.
I got the word “grace” tattooed on my arm almost exactly a year before my marriage ended. Almost like I knew. Like I knew I’d fall down and fuck up and need to forgive myself over and over again in the years to come.
I felt guilty and ashamed for a long time and for a lot of reasons after that relationship was over. But those feelings weren’t new to me then, and they continue to crop up in different areas of my life to this day. I still find myself sometimes fixated on things I’ve done or said in the past that I desperately wish I’d done or said differently.
I don’t know that these feelings ever fully go away, especially if your objective is — like mine — to be a human who does little harm. But the difference between now and the season of life I shared above is that I now know what to do with those feelings.
I’ve learned to give myself grace; to offer a little empathy and understanding for not knowing better until now — and for doing better now that I do.
If the last five years have taught me anything, it’s that I’m a better human not because I am doing life perfectly, but because I made (and continue to make) innumerable mistakes along the way.
Because to be human is to be fallible; subject to a seemingly infinite number of flaws, failures, and fuck-ups. And many of the things that we have said, the things that we have done, the parts of our past that we tend to hold ourselves hostage to are exactly the experiences we needed to have. They are the things we had to say and do and go through in order to learn how to do and be better.
That’s not to excuse intentionally harmful behavior as necessary lived experience, of course, or to exonerate legitimately evil people from the hurt that they cause.
No, it’s to acknowledge that those of us who often feel the most shame — who feel guilty about who we’ve been and how we’ve acted in certain situations or seasons of our life — aren’t inherently bad. We’re actually just human.
And, more often than not, despite what we’ve done (and will do), we deserve a little grace.
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