Dear Danah,

Please forgive me.

For disrespecting you. For choosing relationships, career goals, other people or moments in time over what you wanted and needed.

For not always loving you like I should, making sacrifices at your expense, chasing the love of another or betraying you by my actions in life.

For not always looking at you with love in the mirror, too quick to judge or criticize because of love handles, an extra wrinkle or some perceived flaw.

For betraying you, often within my romantic relationships, hoping to break my childhood patterns only to find us back in the dance of generational trauma.

For being so critical and judgmental, making you often feel "not enough" - not smart enough, pretty enough, funny enough, successful enough, or whatever "enough" I was searching for in that moment.

For not always making you feel safe - whether that was physical, emotional or psychological safety. I took risks and often your safety was the collateral damage, always leaving you to feel on edge.

For ignoring your inner knowing and intuition, leaping over the voices, feelings of knowing, whether it was for a relationship or in search of the next adrenalin rush in life.

For often putting you second over another, destroying you to try and keep others happy.

For betraying others, even when you heart, body, mind and soul resounded with a loud No.

For pushing you beyond breaking, constantly striving for the next career goal, degree, accomplishment, or accolade, until you crumpled to the ground in exhaustion.

For hurting others, and breaking your heart in the process, over and over again.

For not always treating you like a temple - depriving you of nurturing, such as sleep, water, good food, and instead polluting you with alcohol, temptation, and a diet of popcorn and pickles.

For doing the best I can, but falling short time and time again.

For the actions that made me afraid to look you in the eye, ashamed of who I was becoming or what I was doing in those moments.

For trying, failing, and getting back up to try again.  And maybe that is what life is all about... knowing that I won't be perfect tomorrow, or even the next day, but  also knowing that I will continue to try, fail and get back up....hopefully not continuing to make the same mistakes, repeat patterns or get stuck in the same spirals....but even if I do, learning how to forgive myself as I pick myself up, dust myself off, and try again....

Please forgive me.