It’s hard to turn your back on someone. On anyone. Whether family, friend, or someone you barely know, it’s rough. Leaving. Looking away. Holding a grudge. All it does is swallow you up.
    

When you see them, it feels like you’re in a tiny room. A crowd is pouring into the small space and, in that crowd, is the one person that you can’t forgive. The door is closed. And you’re back to back, blocking the exit. And you can’t stop thinking about them. What they did– whatever it is that they did. But you socialize with the crowd and roar with laughter, telling your dirty jokes. Then the crowd fades. Their chatter turning into a blurred muffling of scattered noises and you zone out, because all you can think about is your ego. Your dumb pride. What’s preventing you from letting go. The feeling that you’ve been undermined in some way, which is completely justified. But the wave of people is crashing on your sand of thoughts and you can’t bring yourself to cough up the conflict that you’ve been pressing down your throat. So you keep it down and the white water bubbles up before it gets sucked back up into the depths of your body of water. But the waves will always come back to the shore again. It’s simply nature. So what does that do for you?
    

Nothing.
    

Oh yes, the person you can’t bear to face is undeserving of your forgiveness. I bet their beach is filled with toxic litter– sheer pollution– and I’m positive they’ve taken the trash out on you. As someone who is reading my work, I respect you and I assume you’re a decent person; that you’re not a bitter, shriveled up mess who gets pissed at everyone all the time, consumed by some hatred that exists somewhere out on the water. Neither am I. But people like us need to let the tide come in and let the ocean breeze go against our faces. You’ve got to turn around and say, “It’s okay.” And you’ve got to mean it.
    

Because if you don’t, the waves will only get bigger and bigger as the day goes on. The sea level will rise so far above your head that eventually the ocean floor will creep up on you and bury you underground so that you can’t swim back up to the surface. The undertow will trap you down there and, the next thing you know, you’re just alone at the center of the earth. The crowd might disappear, but you’ll still hear the voices. You’ll feel like you’ve escaped the room to fall into yet another black hole. Except there’s no exit here.
    

But of course, your back will still be turned– just like you had planned– and you most likely won’t even be aware of your current circumstances. You’ll only be certain that you’re stuck. You’ll whine in your misery, “That one person got me caught up in all this!” You’ll toss and you’ll turn with the ocean. And still, nothing will have changed in your body of water.