Giving Grace

People are encapsulated in one another's memories and stories as moments in time.
When someone does you wrong, the story you tell is of that. When someone makes you feel special, that too, is a story you tell.
And depending on how people exit your life, you tell their story to match that exit. They're frozen.

I've been thinking a little bit about kids from my high school, and how those kids linger in my mind as spoiled or fake or privileged 17 year-olds. They provided a setting where I, as a main character in my own story, wrote and solidified them that way. So now when I think back of Deering High School and of Maine, it is my fact that I went to school with humans who had many blindspots regardless, of course, of who these people are now.

And on one hand, it doesn't matter, because it's my story and it's something we all do. Our stories have protagonists and antagonists and supporting characters. On the other hand, I've been ruminating about grace and growth.

It doesn't matter to the people I drew in my mind as playing a certain character because they're no longer part of my life so it wouldn't be doing it for them but it would be about collectively reframing the narrative as a country and a culture to make room for growth and complexities in human beings.

Those bad guys who messed around in college and partied too much may have a family who they love now but if in my story I tell them as those bad guys in college than my narration about men adds to the narrative of people who are either stuck in their immaturity or repeats perhaps, the narrative that there isn't anything other than this narrative.

And stories are cultural and emotional facts.

On one hand, this is just a post about the stereotypes we exacerbate because of our personal experiences, right? But conversely, this is post is also selfish because we all want to be seen as complex and thoughtful individuals who grow.

...not just that 17 year old rapper who used derogatory language and is now forever a misogynist or that white kid was trying so hard to fit in with kids of color that it came off as disingenuous/ cultural appropriation or that shy kid at college who didn't have an opinion about anything important... many of us don't want to be stuck there in quicksand.

BUT

People have some autonomy to rewrite their stories in their own lives and in the lives of other people as well. What it takes is the reevaluation of values and admissions of misdeeds and lots of fuck ups and conversations. The issue lies not within the journey but to whether the individual is willing to take that journey. Is the individual having conversations about violence against the LGBTQ community or examining their misogyny or classism because it may not necessarily change the narratives about them in the stories already written but it changes their role in other people's stories which changes the overall human story. And if they remain connected to the people from old, it also reveals examples of growth, so long as we, the receivers, allow room for grace in our hearts.

I often giggle at the people who have wronged me in some way who want to re-enter my life after either neglect or the colorful language that had been used against me but instead of calling them thirsty or stupid, my hope is that whatever new or positive energy they have suddenly found for me, be utilized in caring connections with others so that their stories can lean more positive. I am not saying human beings should re-enter the lives of those they harmed. Different people have different opinions on that but I don't believe it myself. In my view, they can become anew to others and forgiven in not only the hearts but also the critical minds of those they harmed.

One of my practices for this very fragile year where human beings are losing their lives, their dignity, and their livelihoods is to say, "this person was X to me or this town was X to me, but that is not the whole of who they are and I imagine and hope that this place or this person is better and kinder as a whole person." Our fragile, very individualistic world needs that.

It's tough to do but I try as a person who seeks grace as well.