The Freedom of Accountability

One parenthesis from the AI series... about responsability!

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The most eventful experience of my adult life was my marriage, and the crowning moment of it was becoming a father to two wonderful daughters… and the most devastating moment of my later life was my divorce. To this month, I was separated from the home of my daughters four years ago. I cannot overstate how devastating divorce was on all areas of my life: physical, emotional, economic, and downright personal. For fifteen years, I was building something, and when it collapsed, I felt like I had been building castles in the air. Every day, I thought of death as the best way out, and if I had gotten cancer, I would have been relieved.

My youngest daughter was then four years old. One weekend, I was with them, and my little one’s smile reminded me that I was alive. Later that night, before going to bed, the memory of her smile made me realize that I could never be responsible for wiping that smile out of her life with my death. So, I embarked on assuming responsibility for my situation. Until then, I had been going to work due to inertia; from then on, I started to be deliberate in doing so.

Taking accountability from my past changed my life

I knew I had to do something to take the load off my back – it was just too heavy to carry. So, I began to write. I wrote about my past failures and my present ones. One question pressed against the sea of letters so I would not drown: How was I responsible for what had happened?

It wasn´t the first time I had done that. During an existential crisis in my twenties, I had done the same and it changed my life back then. So here I was, once again thumbing through my decisions and actions, scrutinizing everything with a fine-tooth comb… and lo and behold, there it was: a fear of disappointing my wife and not measuring up. I knew very well that the spiral of fear only leads downward – and down I went for many years, thinking I was being responsible and doing the right thing. But in the end our relationship crumbled.

We are Free to Assume Responsibility

I won’t say it was easy; it was not. I will not say it was always a path upwards; it wasn’t. It was my path towards healing, and that was peaceful.

“You will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free”
– John 8:32.

For those who know me, they know I am a Christian and that Jesus and God have a big say in my emotional and creative life. I can’t say what sustained me, but I have a good idea of who was responsible for it! One thing I do know is that I had help, because I was blindly digging a hole, and then I suddenly knew I had to stop digging and climb out of that hole.

“One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”
- John 9:25

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