August 25: Forgiveness isn't the whole story.

I'm home.

That sentence feels bigger than it should.

I just got back from celebrating the life of my partner's mother, and there's something about walking back through your own front door after a trip like that.

Loss has a way of making you think about everything.

Not just the person you miss.

Time.

Growth.

What we owe the people who hurt us, and what we owe the people we've hurt.

So while I was gone, my brain kept circling back to a project that's been a part of my mind for the past few weeks:

Our accountability policy, both for our local community and for Bliss Boogie (September 19th, if you haven't grabbed a ticket yet).

Here's the short version of what we built:

We believe you deserve real information to make your own calls about the people and spaces you're stepping into.

That means when someone in our community has a complicated history, we're not going to pretend it doesn't exist or quietly sweep it under a rug.

We look at what actually happened, whether it's been genuinely owned, and whether anything real has changed since.

But here's the part that matters most: accountability doesn't mean the person who was hurt owes anyone forgiveness.

Not a conversation, not a role in someone else's redemption arc, nothing.

And it doesn't automatically mean permanent banishment either.

There is no script.

Just honesty, and the responsibility to make sure you have what you need to choose for yourself.

That's the tension I keep sitting with.

Grace and accountability.

Growth and the right to still feel however you feel about what happened to you or to someone else.

If you're carrying something, either the weight of harm you've caused and are trying to grow beyond, or the aftermath of harm someone did to you, that's exactly the kind of thing I love talking through in a Big Ask.

Not therapy.

Not a lecture.

Just space to figure out what moving forward actually looks like for you.

Book your free 15-minute Big Ask.

https://my.curiouser.life/15-minutes-big-ask

I’m glad to be home.

Glad to be building something that’s always worth coming back to.

--
Rev Heather, aka Nookie, LUQ
https://my.curiouser.life
+1-855-712-5433 (toll-free)

P.S. Have you ever had to sit with both sides of this at once? Growing past something you did, or healing from something done to you?

Hit reply. I read every one, and this topic's been on my mind more than usual lately.