A personal reflection
This time, I am in isolation, waiting for law enforcement to address something I believe should be taken seriously: harm to children. In the aftermath of my divorce, I experienced what felt like retaliation. I found myself facing homelessness, poverty, and isolation. In that kind of pressure, old patterns—some of the toxic traits I learned or absorbed as a teenager—can rise to the surface again.
I have been rewatching The Fall of the House of Usher, the
modern Netflix adaptation. It follows the powerful Usher family, whose
pharmaceutical fortune is tied to immense harm, and the reckoning that
eventually reaches them. Its patriarch, Roderick, reflects on his life;
New Year’s is his favourite time because people make resolutions.
That thought stayed with me.
To review the blog regarding the Netflix remake of The Fall of House Usher click here.
A resolution can be easy to dismiss as a temporary promise—something people make and forget. But it can also be an act of attention. It can mean looking honestly at what remains unfinished, naming it, and deciding what responsibility belongs to you now.
I have healed a great deal. Healing does not mean every old wound has disappeared; some things still ask for a clear, deliberate resolution.
For years, I was hard on myself for shortcomings I believed were proof of personal failure. With time and reflection, I have come to understand that many were shaped by abuse, grooming, and circumstances I did not choose. Some of what happened seemed bound up with other people’s need for acceptance, status, or control. There are larger questions there, but they are not the heart of this reflection.
The heart of it is learning to tell the difference between what was done to me and what I choose to do next. Accountability is not the same as taking blame for everything. It is a way of reclaiming agency: recognizing the past without letting it write every future page.
A resolution, for me, is a self-declaration. Write it down. Make it specific enough to return to. Hold myself accountable—not with cruelty, but with honesty and patience. If I stumble, I can acknowledge that, learn from it, and begin again.
A resolution to return to
I will keep separating old harm from present choices. I will take responsibility for what is mine, seek support when I need it, and stop treating every wound I carry as evidence that I failed.