“Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.” ~ Paul Boese
I had an odd encounter on Friday that I wasn’t expecting, not at that moment, not ever. I was sitting on the steps of the main New York Post Office at 31st Street reading a magazine as I waited for my friend Jeff’s improv show to start that was playing around the corner. It was a nice night outside and I had just a few minutes to spend before heading over to the theatre.
A stranger I knew
A man stopped down on the sidewalk and stared at me. It was the guy I was dating when my apartment building fire happened almost two years ago. He was a gem in the immediate aftermath of the incident and showed is terribly ugly true colors not long after. His behavior and words were really hurtful; he kicked me when I was already down and out. We stopped seeing each other shortly after the fire, and I chose to completely cut off any contact with him. I was really, really angry with him and I had bigger issues to contend with. The last thing I needed in my life was someone like him, in any capacity.
He climbed the steps and asked if he could sit next to me, and then made a wise crack inquiring about whether or not my current apartment had caught fire, too. A very insensitive, cruel comment, especially given all of the trauma that unraveled in the months immediately following the fire. Sadly, I wasn’t surprised. Then he began his barrage of personal questions about my life, some I answered and some I left intentionally vague. I actually didn’t ask him a single question about his life because I didn’t really care what the answers were. I wasn’t happy to see him and I wasn’t unhappy to see him. I didn’t feel numb; I just didn’t feel anything. Not about him and not about us. All that anger was gone. I was shocked at how calm I felt. The conversation was only a few minutes long because I had to leave to go see Jeff’s show. We said good-bye – he went his way and I went mine – and I never looked back.
Automatic healing
Just prior to this chance encounter, I was talking to Brian about what I hoped to be able to give veterans and their families who I work with through Compass Yoga. Brian mentioned that I may want to focus on helping them heal to the point that they don’t even have to put themselves through the motions of yoga. The calm they gain through the practice with me would be with them always so that the stress response never even kicks in unless they truly need it to get themselves out of true danger. I wasn’t sure how this would work. though I told Brian I’d think about that idea.
After my brief encounter on the post office steps, I completely understood what Brian was talking about with the veterans and their families. If I had this encounter a year ago, it’s likely that I would have felt nervous, that I would have felt the need to meet his snarky comment about my fire with a snarky retort. Instead, I just told him a few details of my life in response to his questions. I was polite and detached, with no feeling about ever hearing from him or seeing him again. I was so angry with him for a long time, and I realized in this instant that I had found my way to the other side of anger as a much better person. A friend of mine once said, “You really know it’s over when you have nothing left to say.” True statement. I had moved on, completely.
The sweetness of healing found
As I walked toward the theatre to watch Jeff’s show, I thought about our immense capacity for healing every wound, no matter how deep, no matter how long it’s been with us. I found a way to feel anger and then transcend it in a powerful way. In the past year I’ve spent so much time caring for myself and building a life I truly love. It happened so gradually and with so much hard work that I’ve never taken the time to really reflect on just how much healing I’ve done, just how different I am. “You’ve come a long way, baby,” I thought to myself. “A long way. And it feels so good.”
Christa Avampato 