Why is it that we believe Elegance must be the face of a woman's suffering?
In the digital age especially, we have this idea that pain and heartbreak should be purely internal experiences. "We don't air our dirty laundry," an adage I heard more than once growing up in the South, is an apt summation of the notion that we (meaning anyone "respectable") don't speak of our struggles in the public realm.
Sometimes, people view the decision to forgive as weakness or a lack of understanding of one’s own worth. While I can understand that view, I have decided that in my own life, I will view my capacity to move on and let go of anger–as well as my ability to love and trust again in the future despite the horrible things he put me (well, *us*) through–as a sign of my strength, resilience, and loving nature. My worth was and is not diminished by his inability to treat me as though I am deserving of a faithful partner. S. was a lesson more than he was anything else, and I intend to learn what he was brought in my life to teach, painful though it was. Things will be so much better from here on out. <3
