By Thoughts of Recovery
It started with a chase.
One moment I was peacefully trimming back the lavender, the sun warm on my back, birds singing their casual jazz. The next—chaos.
A streak of black and white tore across the lawn like a comet.
“Lando!” I shouted, but he was gone, paws pounding, tail like an exclamation mark.
Right behind him? Bertie. Or rather, Bertie running, in a way only a hedgehog trying not to panic but also definitely panicking can.
“HE’S GOT MY HAT!” Bertie shouted.
Wait—hat?
Sure enough, clutched in Lando’s mischievous little mouth, was a small, floppy sunhat. Hedgehog-sized.
I dropped the shears and ran after them both, heart pounding, trying not to laugh too hard.
Lando darted past the rosemary, leapt over the pond with feline grace, and scrambled up onto the old picnic bench. There he froze, eyes wide and wild, clearly expecting a reward for his “hunt.”
Bertie arrived seconds later, panting, flustered, spines puffed and muddy. “The nerve,” he said. “That hat was a gift from Marvin.”
I retrieved it from Lando’s mouth—slobbery but mostly intact—and handed it back to Bertie, who snatched it like a wounded Victorian.
Lando, looking smug, rolled onto his back on the table and began purring as if nothing had happened.
The chaos ebbed. I caught my breath. We sat together in the afterglow of absurdity.
“That cat has unresolved issues,” Bertie muttered.
I chuckled. “So do I.”
He looked at me. “That’s Step Eight talking, isn’t it?”
“Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’ve been writing the list. It’s… not short.”
“Neither was mine,” Bertie said, smoothing out the creased hat. “Back in the day, I accidentally toppled a vole’s entire herb garden while doing a cartwheel. Took years to work up the courage to admit it.”
“You did a cartwheel?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
I sighed. “I thought it would feel good—making the list. But mostly it’s like waking up and finding your cat’s run off with your most precious thing.”
“Exactly,” he said. “Step Eight doesn’t ask you to fix it yet. Just to face it. To name the people. To admit what you’ve done.”
“And to get willing to make it right,” I said.
Bertie nodded. “Willingness is the engine. The apology is the steering wheel. But this step—it’s where the wheels go back on the car.”
Lando leapt down and curled up on my lap, his purring now a soft backdrop to the afternoon.
I stroked his head and said quietly, “There are people on that list who don’t know how much I hurt them. People I haven’t spoken to in years. I’m scared.”
Bertie’s voice softened. “Of course you are. Because you’re letting go of pride. And pride’s a loud thing. It hates being quiet long enough to say, ‘I was wrong.’”
I looked down at the notebook beside me. The list was growing, line by line. Some names I hadn’t thought of in years. Some still hurt to write.
“But I’m doing it,” I said. “I’m becoming willing.”
Bertie smiled. “And that’s the step. Not the call. Not the coffee shop apology. Just this—owning your side of the story.”
Lando stirred, looked up at me, then nuzzled into my arm—completely unaware of the metaphor he had launched.
“Maybe he’s not such a menace,” I said.
Bertie snorted. “He stole my hat.”
“He made the afternoon memorable.”
And with that, we all sat still. Cat, hedgehog, human. A trio of unlikely peace.
Message for those in recovery – Step Eight:
Step Eight is not about making amends yet—it’s about preparing your heart to do so. It’s the deep inventory of impact. The humbling act of naming names. The willingness to take responsibility, even for the damage you never meant to cause.
You might feel chased by your past at first.
But the more you face it, the less power it has to run your life.
Make the list. Hold the names gently. And know: willingness is already a kind of healing.
Even if your cat runs off with your best hat.
The List Beneath the Lavender
It started with a chase.
Not the cat, not the hat,
not the hedgehog’s breathless fury,
but the moment I stopped pretending
there was no damage behind me.
I was trimming lavender.
Trimming time.
Shaping what blooms, ignoring what trails.
Then—chaos.
Not the comet of black and white fur,
not the flustered shouts of injustice,
but the stillness that came after,
when I saw my reflection,
in a muddy, puffed-up hedgehog,
and a cat who thought theft was play.
The past runs ahead of us,
like a trickster feline,
stealing what we thought,
no one remembered.
And Step Eight says:
Turn and look.
Make the list.
Name the ones behind you,
not to chase,
but to honour.
Willingness is not a sprint.
It is a pause.
It is a breath taken with trembling hands,
as you write the names,
that rise like old songs,
some bitter, some sweet,
all yours.
I once toppled peace,
like a cartwheel in someone else's garden.
I once spoke like the sun,
but burned what I meant to warm.
And I once curled into pride,
like a cat in a patch of shade,
unbothered by what I’d knocked over.
But now,
I stroke the soft fur of amends unborn,
and I whisper:
“I see you.
I hurt you.
I am willing to come back.”
This is not apology.
This is not repair.
This is sitting beside the wreckage
and choosing not to turn away.
The cat does not apologise.
He purrs.
He trusts.
Perhaps this is a kind of wisdom, too.
The hedgehog forgives slowly.
Muddy, proud,
but still willing to sit beside me.
And I—
I begin the sacred work
of remembering without excuse.
Of naming without defence.
Of loving enough to try.
Peace is not the absence of chaos.
It is the stillness that follows
when truth is finally spoken
to the self.
Let the list be your lavender.
Let it bloom.
Let it call the bees.
Let them sting.
Let it call you back
to the path
you thought you'd lost.
