We, as humans, are mosaics.
We are made of pieces we collect from the people we love, sometimes intentionally and sometimes without ever realizing it. The phrases we use. The way we order our coffee. The music we listen to. The foods we like. The little mannerisms we pick up from someone we spent enough time around. Sometimes it is something as small as hearing someone say a word and realizing, years later, that you say it exactly the same way.
It starts small. You try their favorite restaurant and discover your new favorite meal. Someone plays you a song, and eventually you know all the words. You borrow someone's expression without realizing it has become part of your vocabulary. You laugh like your mother. You tell stories like your father. You carry pieces of old friends into new friendships without ever meaning to.
Then one day, you step back and realize how many people are living inside you.
Every part of who I am can be traced back to someone else. My friends have shaped me. The people I've loved romantically have shaped me. My family has shaped me most of all. Some pieces were given to me gently. Others were taken without my permission. Some are pieces I treasure. Others are pieces I wish I could remove entirely.
But once something becomes part of the mosaic, it doesn't simply disappear because you don't like where it came from.
No one has left a deeper mark on me than my father.
I love my father.
He loves me.
And when I was ten years old, my father sexually assaulted me.
There are certain memories that don't feel like memories. They feel like rooms you can still walk into.
For me, one of those rooms is my father's bedroom.
Weekends had a rhythm when I was little. My father slept in on Saturdays, and on Sundays my mother made breakfast. It became my job to wake him. Most mornings, I would crawl into bed beside him and cuddle with him for a while before he got up to eat.
It was ordinary. Familiar. Safe, or at least I thought it was.
That particular morning started the same way. I walked into his bedroom wearing a sleep shirt and underwear, climbed into bed beside him, and laid there. Then something changed. He pulled my shirt up higher than usual. He tugged at my underwear.
I froze.
Time stopped. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. I simply was.
I didn't understand what was happening. I didn't have the words for it. I only knew that something was wrong and that I didn't want it to happen. My body went completely still while my mind struggled to understand what was happening to me.
Then I heard footsteps.
My mother.
My father quickly adjusted my clothes, and everything returned to normal just before she walked into the room.
And that was it.
No one said anything.
We have never spoken about it.
I don't think we ever will.
There have been so many moments when I have imagined telling my mother. Sometimes I picture myself finally saying the words and her pulling me into her arms. I imagine her telling me that it wasn't my fault. I imagine her understanding why certain things have always been difficult for me, why some parts of my childhood feel different when I look back at them now.
But then I think about what comes after.
What if she doesn't believe me?
What if she does?
Would she leave him? Would she stay? Would she tell the rest of our family? What would I tell my little brother? What would happen to the family I have known my entire life?
There is a strange kind of grief in knowing that the truth can be both something you desperately want to say and something you are terrified to release.
Sometimes silence isn't forgiveness.
Sometimes it is fear.
And sometimes it is the knowledge that telling the truth won't undo what happened. It will only change everything that comes after it.
I have spent years carrying that knowledge quietly.
Eventually, I forgave my father.
I don't mean that I forgot. I don't mean that I decided what happened didn't matter. I don't mean that forgiveness erased the anger or made the memory disappear.
It didn't.
Forgiveness, for me, has been much less dramatic than that. It has been letting go of the idea that I can change what happened. It has been accepting that this is one of the pieces I was given, whether I wanted it or not.
I can love him.
I can hate what he did.
I can remember the good parts of my childhood and still acknowledge the terrible part.
I can wish things had been different without wishing away the person I became.
That is the part people don't always understand about forgiveness. Sometimes forgiveness isn't about giving someone else peace. Sometimes it is about refusing to let what they did occupy every corner of your life.
My father is still part of my mosaic.
I used to think the pieces of a mosaic had to fit neatly together. That eventually, if you looked at them from far enough away, everything would make sense.
I'm not sure I believe that anymore.
Some pieces don't belong together neatly. Some edges are sharp. Some colors don't match. Some pieces were placed there by people who loved me. Some were left behind by people who hurt me. Some I chose for myself. Some were forced into the picture before I was old enough to understand what was happening.
And yet, they are all there.
That doesn't mean I have to like every piece. It doesn't mean I have to be grateful for the ones that hurt. It doesn't mean the broken pieces become beautiful simply because they are part of something larger.
It just means they are part of me.
My father is part of me. My childhood is part of me. The things I remember are part of me. The things I don't talk about are part of me too.
But they are not all of me.
There are pieces that came from laughter and friendship. Pieces that came from falling in love. Pieces that came from growing up and realizing I could make choices for myself. Pieces that came from people who loved me well. Pieces I have created entirely on my own.
There are pieces still being made.
The mosaic isn't finished. Neither am I.
I can carry what happened to me without letting it become the only thing people see when they look at me. I can acknowledge the pieces that hurt without giving them the whole picture. I can love people who have complicated places in my story while still protecting the parts of myself that need protection.
I don't need every piece to make sense before I can keep building. Some things will always be painful to look at. Some memories will always carry weight. Some parts of my story will never have the ending I wish they had.
But the picture is bigger than any one piece. It holds the girl I was and the woman I became. It holds the people who hurt me and the people who loved me, the things I lost and the things I found along the way.
Every piece has changed the picture, but none of them gets to become the whole thing.
Some pieces are beautiful. Some are painful. Some I am still learning how to look at.
But they are all mine.
And I am still adding to them. Still becoming. Still making something out of all of it.
My father is one piece of the picture.
He is not the whole mosaic.