Still learning

Most of you know that I struggled finding a topic for this next blog post and I recruited people to help me. Originally, my choices were between "love" "life lately" "100 things I love" or "5 favorite books" and now, here I am, writing about none of those. 

The crazy part is, I totally wrote a whole blog post about love, I even wrote a list of 100 things I loved, and I got bored. And if there is one thing I learned from years of looking up writing advice from authors, it's that if you are bored, the reader is bored. 

So here is my new idea, something I've been struggling with and working a lot at lately, Forgiveness. 

For my whole life, this was never a weakness that was super noticeable to me. When I would evaluate myself, it was never a "Ella!! Man, you NEED to work on forgiveness" situation. No one had ever wronged me enough to make me not want to forgive them. That last sentence is still true, actually, but I have been hurt by people and even though it is my desire to forgive them, I know I have not. Not completely. 

SO why the heck not? Why is it that even though I say I've forgiven them, and even though we are on semi-good terms, I still feel sick when they are brought up? Why is the wound still fresh? Why can't things go back to the beginning? 

I, in all honesty, have zero answers to those questions. Not even a theory. BUT I know it's something I have to work on. 

In less than a month, I'm leaving for college, and I'm so excited. I think my new experiences, my freedom from my parents, the new people, and the clean slate will help me so much in the journey of figuring out my life, moving on from the negativity of my past and high school years, and it will help me so much in me efforts to forgive. 

I heard somewhere that a big part of forgiving is letting go, and I think part of me is still clinging to the person I was when I was hurt by these people. Part of my is still clinging to the place, and the situation, and the people involved. I'm not one of those people to move to college and forget all the people in my past, not one of those people to just drop everyone that aren't perfect. I don't want to move on completely. But like my wise friend told me the other day "removing yourself from a toxic relationship or a toxic person isn't bad, it's for you. It doesn't mean you don't love or forgive that person, it just means you're focusing on you for a while." 

And in the kindest and most sincere way possible, I'm going to focus on me for a while. I'm going to move on. I'm going to explore my interests and meet new people and come back on the break a happier, new, fresh, different version of Ella. 

Don't worry, though, I'll still be mostly the same. And I love everyone in my life, for reals. 

So, no, I don't really know how to completely forgive yet. But I'm working on that, that and a million other things to better myself. To become more like the person I've always wanted to be (the person God and I know I can be). 

Hopefully that made a little sense. 

Like always, like everyday for the rest of my life, I'll be grateful for you (whoever is reading this). It means so much that you care enough about me to care about my dream. 

Signing off until next time, 

Ella Frances Waite