People can be cruel and sometimes we're hurt. We're hurt so bad it's impossible to think of ever healing. The pain consumes us, follows us around like an angry shadow, darkening day, blackening night, turning over and over in our minds, ripping a fresh wound each time. Whether it was a word misused, a phrase misconstrued, an action misunderstood, we all choose how we deal with these moments that hurt us. It is up to us to decide what move to make, how to retaliate. We are all queens on the chess board, men and women, boys and girls, for all options are open, but unlike chess there is always one choice that will win the game, and for everyone.
Life is tough, confusing. We each deal with stressful, odd, and bad situations where there appears to be no right answer and the flame of hope seems to extinguished. Sometimes we hurt each other, we let words come from our mouths that we never thought our voice would carry, and most often we don't mean half of what we said. We lose ourselves in anger. We fall apart from the pain of being hurt and lash out with thoughts like knives, never meant to actually be heard. And as soon as we let these thoughts loose, we regret it, we want to take it back, to have the moment back again just before they were said. To restrain ourselves. Every decision we make has a consequence, and these impulsive actions only result in a retaliation and a cycle begins. We must know the moves to make to heal, not to hurt, to get closer to the king, not farther away.
It takes time to heal. It takes time to learn. To learn to step back and be objective, to be empathetic, to really feel. Once we allow ourselves to calm down, to cool the anger inside of us, to look at the other person and understand their side too, only then can both sides win. For when we allow ourselves into the mind of another, to really make an effort to make things right, we can forgive. Forgiveness is the move to the king, but it is not a move that conquers the other, it is a move that brings you closer together and ends the game.
Life is tough, confusing. Being hurt blinds us, deafens us, takes away our senses. It strips us of our sanity. It makes us irrational, rash, and in the wrong. We have to give in, to sacrifice a bishop, to give up a knight for the cause, to let a rook be taken, in order to move forward. We have to move square after square, step by step, in order to reach the king. We have to forgive. And forgiveness is peace, it is a beautiful, pure expression of love and happiness. And love is the last move. Love is the checkmate.
