This graphic, or some version of it, has popped up all over my newsfeed in the past week. As we move through the High Holiday Season, this is a time of reflection and atonement, in order to move ahead.
It reads “To those I may have wronged, I ask for your forgiveness. For those I may have helped, I wish I could have done more. For the many I neglected to help, I am truly sorry. To those who helped me, I am deeply grateful.”
I want to take a moment with those last bits. For the many I neglected to help, I am truly sorry. I was focused entirely on my kids and work this year, pretty much full stop. I did not have the bandwidth to extend myself beyond Lu and Cole and my Baby To Go families – and even that was a stretch many times. I know some of my friends had their own struggles this year, and I am sorry for when I was not there. I also dropped the ball on many of my extra activities and responsibilities, and am so thankful for those who picked up my slack. I will do better this year.
To those who helped me, I am deeply grateful. This is such an incredible understatement. MY community came through for me this year in such a major way – over and over and over again. Friends reached out at times of struggle and offered emotional and physical support to a magnitude I can never ever repay, although I will try. When I was younger, I read Anne of Green Gables because everyone my age did, I think, and I joked around about the “Anne effect.” It seemed to me that Anne basically smiled or offered some small kindness to an elderly woman in book 1 and that same person essentially found her a job and bought her a house by book 5. The relationship felt a little lopsided. Right now, SO MANY of you have gone so far out of your way for me and I feel like Anne. Maybe I am a vaguely nice person, but this return? I can’t comprehend it. I love you – everyone who sent me a message or drew Lu a picture or took Cole for a playdate. Who listened to my crazy ramblings without judgment. Who checked in when I was feeling low and met for coffee when I needed a friend. I am so, so deeply grateful.
