Some names are easy to put on an Eighth Step list. There were fights, resentments, broken relationships, and obvious wreckage. But then there are the quieter names. The people who answered the phone. The people who worried. The people who gave us another chance and then another one. The people who kept loving us even when we weren’t giving them much to work with.
Those names can be harder.
It is sometimes easier to look at the people we fought with than the people who loved us. Looking at them can show us things we would rather not see. The missed birthdays. The broken promises. The money that never came back. The nights they stayed awake wondering where we were. Sometimes they never even demanded an apology.
Step Eight gives us an opportunity to see those relationships differently. Not so we can beat ourselves up over the past, but so we can recognize the love that was there even when we couldn’t recognize it at the time. Some people carried us farther than we ever knew.
Who loved me through a time when I wasn't very good at loving them back?
