I Forgive.... Me

Forgive and forget.... This seems easy enough to do when someone you love makes a mistake or hurts you. Why then is it so hard to forgive me?

A few months ago, someone told me that they thought that I may not have forgiven myself for my past.
That perhaps I still hold it against myself, that I am not where I thought I would be by 28.

This got me wondering if I really had forgiven myself for the deepest regret in my life as well. I thought I had - I feel like I have healed from that particular heartbreak, after all, I have spent many years now, writing about it - talking about it. I finally stopped running from it or shying away from it - surely that means I have healed right?

Maybe we never really heal completely from the things that really break us.
We all have baggage, right? Would it really be baggage if we had truly and completely healed from it?

The first cut is the deepest, sure. But does it ever close up and go away?
I think not. But then again, isn't it these wounds that make us who we are?
Don't they build character? make us more able to connect to others?
Don't these hardships and wounds make us more interesting?

As a writer, I know that without the pain, there wouldn't be much worth writing about. I always say that while we love stories that have wonderfully elaborate worlds created within them, while we love the adventure and the romance and the imaginative ideas that pull us in - what we really connect to is the characters. That's why Shonda Rhimes can move us to tears and send us into bouts of rage. That's why we cry when Hedwig and Dobby die - because those characters come alive to us - they are our friends and we love them. This wouldn't be possible if the people writing and portraying these characters couldn't put some very real emotion behind it. If they couldn't draw on their own vulnerability and pain, we would not connect to these characters the way we do.

So pain is good?
Well, it certainly is a universal emotion we all understand and connect to. Sure we all understand joy as well, but we don't connect to it as much as we connect to pain. I think this is because misery loves company.
We are fine feeling alone in our joy - we are probably too happy to even notice if no one else is around. It is a bright happy feeling and it also tends to multiply. But pain is lonely and dark and it festers like mold. So we yearn to feel understood in this feeling.
We yearn to feel less alone in it. This is why when we feel someone else feeling what we have been through, we latch on to that.

Ok sorry, back to forgiveness. Anyone who truly knows me well could probably attest to the fact that I am particularly hard on myself. I expect perfection from myself and since I am human and not perfect, I often feel disappointed in myself for my failures.
So yes, forgiving myself has always been a battle I have struggled with.
I think this sometimes makes me harsh on others when they fall short too, which is not fair at all.

I am trying. I guess that is all I can say on that subject. It isn't easy for me to do but I am trying.

For me the things that help are well, this - writing has always been a form of therapy for me. I have let it slide for months now because I have not felt particularly inspired to work on my novel but again something I need to forgive myself for. It wasn't perfect when I finished the first draft. It still doesn't feel quite good enough and that is probably why I am struggling so much trying to finish it.
So I am trying to give myself a break - writing other things like these blog posts help.
I hope that one day I will finish TEND, but even if I never do - writing it has helped me.
It is a great story that I would love to one day share - when I am ready. when it is ready. That day isn't today and that is ok.

I am not where I expected to be at 28. I have not done or achieved many of the things I wanted to have done by this age. Yes, 30 is far too close for my liking, but also, I have achieved and come through many things I never could have imagined I would have done by this age. I have had experiences I could not have predicted, I have overcome challenges I never would have expected I would have to overcome. So maybe those are more important than the plans I made at 17. Maybe life has had other plans for me and that really isn't my fault at all.

I let someone walk out of my life at 13 and I didn't know then that she was walking out of my life for good. I was a stubborn, angry kid who had no idea just how much I would come to regret that choice. I could not have known though. I couldn't possibly have known. I promised myself at 17 that I would never let that happen again - I was once again setting myself up for failure. Of course people; friends would walk out of my life again. That's life.

I have recently learned that sometimes caring for someone, even loving them isn't enough to stay in each other's lives. and sometimes it is even better for the relationship to love them from afar. To be a forever well-wisher, rather than to continue hurting one another by trying to hold on too tight to something that hasn't worked. I also know now that it is only when you let the butterfly go that they have the opportunity to fly back to you. Letting go doesn't always mean goodbye forever. I have had friendships that I thought I had lost come back recently and it is even better now because both people have had a chance to grow in the meantime and the friendship is part history and part new. It has grown as well.

It is sad when people who were once so important and so central to your life, suddenly feel like strangers.
When you... "just now got the feeling that we're meeting for the first time." It sucks, but it happens.
And sometimes that is for the best. It doesn't mean that you never meant anything to each other.
Maybe instead it is respect to what you once had to not try and turn it into something that it isn't.
To not settle for a cheap imitation. Maybe it helps to preserve the memory of what once was.
To, as I said before - be a well-wisher from afar.

Loss is different of course. That can't ever be reversed. This is exactly what makes it so much harder to forgive because I can't look for absolution in the other person and then let myself off the hook. I have to find forgiveness solely in myself. I don't have an answer to this one, at least not yet.
Over a decade later it is still hard. Yes, I have learned from it, Yes I know I wouldn't be the person I am without having gone through it.
I know it has made me stronger. So it should be simple right - let go and move on.
Part of me has.
But the deepest wounds always leave scars.