The older I get the more I realize how important each moment is. I wonder if this is called “maturing” or getting “wiser”.
*insert chuckle here*
You know when you watch a baby or a toddler learn a new skill and they try and try and then all of a sudden it just happens. You can sometimes see the look of wonder and achievement on their face when this happens and it is an amazing thing to watch.
I feel like I have turned a corner in my life where that has happened. It is almost like an “aha” moment/time in my life. Almost like I can see things a whole new way. This has happened to me in the past few years from about the age of 38. Huge things have happened and I don’t know if it was the events that pushed me further along or just age. In the span of those years I had a motorcycle accident, gastric bypass surgery, major spinal surgery, the diagnosis of my oldest child with bipolar, graduated with a BA in Psychology, the devastating loss of a dear friendship, my oldest graduating high school, the hospitalization of my youngest and her diagnosis of a mental illness, the death of one of my fur babies and the celebration of twenty years of marriage. Not all were bad things but not all were good. All were intense and life changing.
Some required intense feelings. One being forgiveness. I have written in a blog before about the “what ifs” I no longer give that the time but because I am human “what ifs” always creep in like a morning fog.
They get into the cracks and crevices of who you are and sometimes they are hard to shake out.
I thought I wanted to forgive. I knew what it was costing me to carry around the resentment, the replaying of old arguments and the anticipation of future conflict.
Yet something in me didn’t want tmo forgive, and this was the truth that I had resisted owning for so very long.
We don’t like admitting to the fact that some petty part of ourselves doesn’t want to forgive people. We say we “don’t know how,” and that might be true, but the other truth is that some part of us often doesn’t want to forgive.
We don’t want to admit that this part exists, because of all the stories it piles on top of us—stories that we’re mean, petty, judgmental people.
Of course, we’re expressing mean, petty, judgmental behaviors when we refuse to forgive.
It’s not intentional. It’s just that we’ve been hurt, and forgiveness feels like letting someone off the hook, or pretending that it was okay that they did what they did.
The irrational fear is that if we forgive, someone else will do “it” again. But the truth is, whether or not we forgive has nothing to do with controlling another person’s behavior.
People do what they do. The only person to let off the hook is ourselves, by not concerning ourselves with monitoring someone else’s behavior, or replaying the past.
The very thought of letting someone walk away scot-free from what they’ve done makes us upset.
In the beginning it makes you want to make the person suffer as you are. But that is not going to fix anything. Wanting justice or that feeling of wanting someone to suffer and feel as angry and upset as you are is not an eraser that will wipe away the pain of what’s happened to you. It does not undo the pain that you’ve been living with and grant you immediate peace. Finding peace is a long, uphill battle. Forgiveness is just what you take to stay hydrated along the way. I have needed a LOT of hydration. I have traveled the way uphill, barefoot and on shattered glass.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean you have to make amends with who hurt you. It doesn’t mean befriending them again, sympathizing with them or validating what they have done to you. It just means accepting that they’ve left a mark on you. And that for better or for worse, that mark is now your burden to bear. It means you’re done waiting for the person who broke you to come put you back together, mostly because you do not need them to nor do you want them to. This is stated with no malice just as a fact. It’s the decision to heal your own wounds, regardless of which marks they’re going to leave on your skin. It’s the decision to move forward with scars.
I don’t mind scars. They are reminders that you went through something and made it out the other side.
But the scars you don’t see are the worst kind. The scars on your heart, the scars on your brain and the memories of what once was and what will never be. When you draw that line in the sand, and the person who hurt you does not expect it, understand it or thinks it can be wiped away, the real truth hits you.
It has been enough. There has been a loss.
Forever.
Sometimes understanding the "whys" of what happened can be helpful, but sometimes we will never know why someone or something hurt us… And you don't want to make your own recovery contingent upon understanding why the bad thing happened. You may never understand why, but that's okay. You don't have to know why something happened in order to get better.
Reconciliation requires both parties working together. And you may not want reconciliation simply because of the fact you have had enough.
And that is OKAY.
Forgiveness is something that is entirely up to you. Although reconciliation may follow forgiveness, it is possible to forgive without re-establishing or continuing the relationship. The person you forgive may be deceased or no longer part of your life. You may also choose not to reconcile, perhaps because you have no reason to believe that a relationship with the other person is healthy for you or nothing has changed. That you may still love them and forgive them but you cannot move on from the hurt.
And that is okay too.
Unfortunately, I've known too many people who have taken my forgiveness as a license to hurt me again.
Part of me I feel has hardened. I have a hard time investing in relationships that have hurt me or have the potential to do so.
I can just about navigate through my day without losing my shit with just those I HAVE to care for.
I have learned my limitations.
Those who love me and want to be in my life understand this.
The realize I have limited mental resources, love them when I am able and do not take things personally.
Those are the gems in my life.
Maybe we are all becoming wise at the same time!
I just want peace.
The older I get the more I want people in my life who love me for who I am and value the fact that I am honest with my convictions and appreciate and respect that.
Cause I am tired and I ain't got no time for nothing else.
True Story Folks
Peace to you and yours
Always and in All Ways
~t
