When the tulips bloomed again, I didn’t know what to do with myself.
For years I’d been pretending the garden was just dirt, nothing more than a patch of land I couldn’t keep alive.
But seeing those flowers come back felt like being pulled into a memory I’d worked too hard to bury.
So I started writing and not because I wanted to, but because the weight of everything I’d been carrying finally felt too heavy to keep inside.
At first it was just scribbles of half-thoughts and broken pieces of memories I couldn’t say out loud.
But the more I wrote, the more I realized how much I had forgotten.
I forgot birthdays, promises and the sound of laughter that used to fill this house.
Maybe the hardest thing is knowing I forgot on purpose. It was easier to let the memories slip through my fingers than to hold them and feel them cut all over again.
But forgetting comes with its own cost.
When I look at my children, I wonder if they’ve paid the price for me.
Have I been too cold, absent, and locked in the shadows of what I chose to forget?
Have they been growing up in the silence I created?
Of course journaling doesn’t fix it. But it forces me to sit down with myself, to stop running from the pieces of Angela and the pieces of me I’ve buried.
On the page, I can’t lie because every forgotten thing comes back, and I have to face it.
Maybe writing is my way of remembering again.
Not everything at once, but enough to stop pretending the garden has been dead all this time.
Enough to remember that forgetting doesn’t mean the love I tried to forget ever left.
Journal Prompts
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What memory do you find yourself avoiding, and why?
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How has forgetting (or trying to forget) shaped the way you show up for others?
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If you could write a letter to something you’ve been trying not to remember, what would you say?
if you want to learn more about stevies journey and this love he is talking about you can pre order The Onion Effect here or you can join The Parris post here where we dive into families storie one chapter at a time.
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