Forgive and Forget

I’ve been meaning to pimp Wende’s site and I couldn’t find a way to work it in to whatever I was ranting about. It’s a little awkward to list my favorite expletives and then write, “Oh by the way, check out Wende’s fucking awesome crafts. She’s got a kickass store that all you stupid jackass douchebags will love.” See? It doesn’t work. But today I have the opportunity to tell you intelligent, discerning, and erudite people about her store called Thrifty Goodness. I’ve wanted a pair of these lounge pants since I first discovered them, but I refuse to order them until I reach a point that I will not be embarrassed to give my measurements. But I digress … sort of.

She does a little thing she calls Sunday Sermon, where she posts a picture that reflects an idea or a thought. Sometimes she writes a few paragraphs about it, but usually she leaves it up to the reader to decide what it means to them. Today’s picture is here. And this is what I thought when I saw it:For several weeks I have been contemplating contacting an old friend of mine. (And for you regular lurkers, the friend is not K, the one who ran away). I was thinking about how much things had changed in the last few years and how nice it would be to start over – or at least resume where we left off. The more I thought about it, though, I realized that I can’t pick up the phone and make that call. Life happens and people change, but sometimes you just can’t go back.

Then I started thinking of all the times I wanted to go back or tried to go back to change an outcome or to influence another situation. It’s impossible. Forgiveness is possible – and I think there is more forgiveness in this world than we understand – but the past remains to remind us of what we are forgiven for. If forgiveness erased the past, then there would be no change – ever. Because the only thing that motivates humans (at least the ones I know) to change is the fact that someone was hurt. That someone could be a spouse, a friend, a child, or even themselves. But at the bottom of every profound change is pain.

It took forty years a long time to understand that no matter how much I change, no matter what I do to correct past mistakes, the mistakes will always be there to remind me. That used to piss me off because I felt that people used the past against me. Sometimes it was used against me, but more often it was simply not forgotten.

When someone hurts me I tend to withdraw and hide until the initial wave of agony passes. Once that passes, I’m usually okay and I usually forgive the person. And ultimately, I forget the hurt. I just … forget. For a long time I thought that made me better than everyone else because I thought it meant I had evolved and had come to some enlightened revelation that no one else had discovered.

I was wrong about that, as it turns out. What was really happening is that I just didn’t want to lose a friend, or a lover, or whatever the relationship was. I didn’t want to be alone. By forgetting, I allowed people to walk on me for a very long time and all the while, I was professing my strength of character and being obnoxiously self-righteous. Forgiveness is important in any relationship, but it is dangerous to forget.

These thoughts have been swimming in the murky depths for a while now. Seeing Wende’s picture made them surface. I want to be open. This last year has been incredible and I’ve been happier than I have been in years. It’s okay to be alone because I am finally okay with myself. Open is hard. Open is scary. I am finally open to understanding the reasons things happened the way they did.

I forgave my friend a long time ago. I even forgave myself.

This time, though, I won’t forget.

forgiveness renewal life friends