I’ve learned not to hold people hostage to who they used to be

 I’ve learned not to hold people hostage to who they used to be. We are all constantly changing, breaking apart, and coming back together in new ways. Sometimes we act from fear, sometimes from confusion, sometimes from a kind of love that didn’t yet know how to express itself. I used to think forgiveness meant pretending nothing happened, or opening the door exactly the same way again. But real forgiveness is softer, it’s letting go of who someone was, and who you were when it all unfolded.

I’ve watched people transform before my eyes. The ones I thought would never change suddenly did. Others stayed stuck for years, then shifted in a single breath. Life humbles you like that. You never really know when a person’s moment of awakening will come, or what will spark it. So I try not to keep anyone trapped in an old story, not even myself.

I’ve been so many versions of me: the angry girl, the fighter, the mother who carried too much, the healer who forgot her own medicine, the woman who wanted to be chosen. Each one had her purpose. Each one helped me grow into the person I am now. But if someone only remembers one of those versions, they don’t really see me anymore. And I’ve done that too, kept people frozen in a moment that no longer exists.

We are all in motion, always becoming. I don’t want to carry old images of anyone. I want to meet people where they are now, without the weight of who they used to be. Because love, real love, allows room for change. It doesn’t chain people to the past, it lets them evolve, and it blesses them as they do.

~Shanti Freedom Das