Last night I shouted at my 2.5 year old daughter because she would not go to sleep for the 4th night in a row. It seemed I had reached my tolerance point and I hated it and I hated me. Shouting at her little beautiful face because she couldn’t sleep, what craziness. My body was full of the tension, sharing it with my unborn child, just to add to the guilt and misery I felt. Unable to see past my need for a couple of hours down time, desperate for her to sleep, I lost my cool and I know that there is a little scar left on her soul.
Today, I wanted to find a place to forgive myself and also to find a peace with however she is going to go to sleep at this place in her life. I realised that I could find a gift within the pain of this scenario, I realised that there is no one in the world that I love as fiercely, honestly and simply as my gorgeous little girl and yet I had managed to feel a chasm of anger towards her for a few moments the night before. I knew my love had not changed. What I saw, really for the first time, was that despite pain and anger there can still be love. That for all those people in my life that push my buttons and wrench at my emotions and I wonder if I want them in my world, I question if I can really love them when I feel such opposites towards them, and now I see that I can.
I can hold anger and love together in one cup, I can understand what forgiveness looks like. I can know that they can also love me in their moments of anger and hurt, because my daughter, my most precious gift in this life, has shown me that. Thank you little angel and I still make my promise to measure my anger and respect your own journey, even when it is contrary to how I need or feel I need to be in that moment. I pledge that to you today and start afresh. Sweet dreams, sleep tight.