Trying to make sense of my little bit.
So this, this, was what change felt like. It was hard. I have failed more times than I have succeeded. In this unlearning (deconstruction, if you will), I had every right to feel betrayed by a religion that had sold me a lie. But as I wrote earlier, I couldn’t stay wallowing in resentment or bitterness.
We didn’t make a final date to decide anything. We were just going to see what happened. According to our psychologist, limiting expectations, sitting with our feelings, and dealing with just what was in front of us at the time was a good thing. But that meant I had no idea what to expect.
And as soon as the words were out of his mouth, I knew they were the first right thing to be said for a long time. I had clung on for as long as I could. I white-knuckled the shit out of that marriage. But the foundations were crumbling, and having the honesty to call it like he saw it gave me the permission I needed to stop lying to myself.
I was just starting to understand that there were other ways of understanding the world that did not centre around the dominant rhetoric I'd grown up with: whiteness, Christianity and generosity through charity. Vu Le led the way to the door; Anand Giridharadas handed me the key.
Jemma Balmer 