(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Acceptance: Part Five – Coming Home [1] ['Douglas Schonenberg', 'Chitown Kev', 'Bill In Portland Maine', 'Ade', 'Meteor Blades'] Date: 2026-07-14 On discovering that the person you’ve been searching for has been waiting for you all along. A few days ago, a song I hadn’t heard in years started playing through my headphones while I was at the gym. It was an old song by Ivan Neville from the 1980s called, Falling Out of Love. The first time I heard the song, decades ago, I thought it was simply about growing up, ending relationships, and trying to find your place in the world. But listening to the song that day, I heard something completely different. This time the song wasn’t about someone else. It was about me. As I listened to the words, I realized something that I had never fully admitted to anyone before, including myself. For years after my brain injury… I wasn’t just grieving my old life. I was falling out of love with myself. I did not like the person that I was. If my feelings for myself at that time was about someone else, then I would have ended that relationship. The next morning I found Mylo sitting on a bench beneath the tree before I arrived. The chessboard wasn’t there. Neither were the masks. Beside the bench sat an old, worn backpack. I didn’t remember bringing it, and for some reason I didn’t ask why it was there. And there were two photographs resting quietly on the bench between us. One from before my accident. One from today. He handed me the older photograph. I nudged the backpack aside with my foot to make room to sit on the bench. It was surprisingly heavy. “There you are,” I whispered. The man I still wish that I was. The man convinced of his own invincibility; who believed that he could do anything. The man who believed life was something that you built one careful decision at a time. I loved that man. I still do. Then Mylo handed me the second photograph. The man looking back at me had more gray hair. More scars. He moved a little slower. He thought a little longer before speaking. He carried more pain than the first man could possibly imagine. For years… that’s all I could see. The losses. The disappointments. Everything that I wasn’t anymore. And when I looked at myself in the second picture and compared him to the man in the first photograph, I felt sad. He wasn’t as quick. He wasn’t as confident. He was not the husband that I thought I should be. He was not the father I imagined I would become. He was not the successful technical writer whose career ended on a highway. Little by little… without realizing it… I stopped seeing myself with compassion. I saw myself as a disappointment; a failure; just as my step father for years called me long before my car accident. That feeling I had for myself wasn’t acceptance. It was grief disguised as judgment. “I still miss him,” I said. “I know,” Mylo answered. Then he asked me a question only a kender would think to ask. “Why?” I started to answer. Then stopped. Because every answer I could give sounded like another comparison. Another expectation. Another version of the life that I thought I should have lived. None of them had anything to do with the man sitting beneath the tree. The man I saw every day in the mirror. And then… a memory I hadn’t visited in years came rushing back. A terrible memory; one in which I almost gave in to the voices in my head that called me a loser. Several years after my accident, I was still drowning. I was lost. I could not think; could not remember; had trouble talking or basically doing anything. My life was a series of appointments with doctors and physical therapist. And it seemed like I was not getting better; that I was never going to get better. Instead I lived a life of solitude, depression and pain. Every day felt like another reminder of everything I had lost. And I felt like it was never going to get better; I was never going to be anything more than a burden to my family. And then, one evening, during a conversation at my dinner table, something inside me finally broke. I honestly don’t remember what started the argument. All I remember was me saying horrible things to my mother-in-law. Terrible things. Things I wish even today I could take back. And as my anger grew and overwhelmed me, I saw her face. She looked at me as if she was looking at a stranger. She wasn’t angry, instead she was hurt, and felt betrayed. I remember her saying to me that she never expected me to ever say to her the words I was saying. In that instant, I wasn’t just ashamed of what I had said. I was ashamed of who I had become. And I hated myself. I truly fell out of love with the person that I was. As she looked at me with such hurt, I couldn’t say anything. I just got up from the table and left the house. It was dark. I had no plan. No idea of what I was doing. Just one overwhelming thought went through my mind… End it. I couldn’t do this anymore. I didn’t want to do it anymore. And I wasn’t going to do it anymore. As I walked down the sidewalk, cars passed by. I found myself waiting for a truck. Something large enough that would finish the job that my car accident should have. I still remember after my accident, the police officer on the scene looking at my crushed car and saying to me how he had no idea how I was still alive. At this moment, I was determined to make that police officer right years later. I was looking for a big enough truck to ensure that I wouldn’t survive. As I saw a tractor trailer approach, the exact type of truck that caused my accident years earlier, I thought I had found my way out. As I approached an intersection where the truck was coming toward, toward me, I noticed flashing lights. A police car. It wasn’t there because of me. It was just an act of fate that had that police car at that exact spot where I was planning my end. But seeing those lights somehow broke through the darkness that I had been living inside. For the first time since I left my house that night, I thought about Erica. I thought about Gillian. I thought about what my choice would do to them. And I stopped walking. I just stood there. And I cried. I cried out all of the pain, all of the depression, all of the loss that I had been carrying for so many years. A few minutes later, Erica found me. She wrapped her arms around me as I completely fell apart. I told her everything. That I had nothing left. That I had said such horrible things to her mother and I was ashamed. That I had been about to step into traffic. Erica listened to me as I poured out everything inside me that I needed to get out for a long time. She didn’t tell me to be stronger. She didn’t try to solve my pain. She simply loved me when I couldn’t love myself. Her love saved me. She called my psychiatrist. Somehow he answered in the middle of the night. He stayed on the phone with me talking me down until the storm inside me began to settle. When I got home with Erica, the first thing I did was apologize to my mother-in-law. She hugged me. No anger. No lecture. Just understanding. Looking back now on that horrible night, I realized something. That wasn’t the night everything became better. That wasn’t the night I suddenly accepted myself. Healing doesn’t happen in a single moment. But… it was the night I stopped trying to leave my life. It was the night I chose to stay. I just didn’t know it yet. Mylo quietly pointed toward the older photograph. “You’ve spent years loving one of those men.” Then he pointed toward the second. “And apologizing for the other.” Silence. I looked from one photograph to the other. Until I finally realized something that I should have learned a long time ago. I had never stopped loving the man that I used to be. But I had never realized that the man I had become deserved love too. “I think I finally understand the song,” I said. “What do you hear?” Mylo asked. “I hear someone falling out of love with himself.” “Did you?” “For a long time.” “And now?” I looked around. The tree. The path. The photographs. Then I smiled. “I think…” “I’m finally coming home.” “I’ve spent years trying to decide which one is the real me.” “What if they both are?” Mylo placed the photographs side by side. Not one replacing the other. Together. “Stories aren’t made from one chapter,” he said. “They’re made from all of them.” Surrender had taught me to stop arguing with reality. Acceptance had taught me to stop arguing with myself. I had spent years believing I had to choose. The man before the accident… or the man after. Doug… or Mylo. Grief… or gratitude. Strength… or vulnerability. Life had been whispering something different all along, I just wasn’t listening. I can love the man I used to be… without refusing to love the man I am becoming. “You know,” I said, “I spent years trying to find you again.” “I know.” “I thought I’d lost you.” “You did.” “I did?” “You lost the part of you that believed wonder was optional.” “So when did I find you again?” “You didn’t.” “You stopped looking.” “You simply made room for me inside your heart.” That’s when I finally understood what Mylo was trying to tell me. Mylo hadn’t disappeared from my life. I had slowly become him. Not because the accident transformed me. But because every time I surrendered… every time I accepted… I made room for the curious, compassionate, playful part of myself that had been waiting patiently all along for me to rediscover. Mylo had never been trying to change me. He had been helping me become whole. As we stood to leave, I picked up the photographs. This time… I didn’t choose one. I carried them both. They’re both part of my story. They’re both me. Mylo smiled. “You’re home.” “I’ve been here before.” I said. Mylo shook his head. “No. You’ve been beneath this tree before. Today… you stopped running.” As we walked away together , I noticed the chessboard waiting beneath the bench. The game wasn’t over. It was simply waiting for the next move. “So…” I asked. “What comes after acceptance?” Instead of answering, Mylo bent down and picked up the backpack that I had been carrying all these years full of the pain, depression and disappointments I have felt over a lifetime. A backpack that had once been so heavy on that terrible evening, I almost could no longer carry it. He handed it to me. It felt lighter. But it wasn’t empty. “What am I still carrying?” I asked. “I thought I was through carrying all of this guilt around.” He smiled gently. “Now…” “…that’s the right question.” I looked inside. It wasn’t filled with memories. It was filled with shame. Anger. Regret. Fear. Guilt. Old expectations. Old versions of myself. Acceptance hadn’t emptied the backpack. It had simply given me the courage to finally open it. Surrender taught me to stop fighting life. Acceptance taught me to stop fighting myself. Only then… was I ready to stop fighting my past. That… is where forgiveness begins. Thank you for sitting under the tree with me and listening to my musings. If you enjoyed this musing, please consider joining my Substack, Musings Under My Tree. I write about empathy, personal growth, Being S.A.F.E., some politics, and whatever else wanders through my mind while sitting beneath the branches. https://musingsunderthetree.substack.com/p/welcome-to-my-tree?r=1s6ofh [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/7/14/800069714/community/acceptance-part-five-coming-home/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/