“I can’t forgive the person who hurt me.”
This isn’t true. Do not tell me you are weaker than the person who hurt you. You are stronger. If you weren’t, they wouldn’t have felt compelled to tear you down. If you were so weak, they would have passed you by as a non threatening entity. A wolf does not attack an ant.
It’s not for them. It’s for you. It’s for your friends. The ones that will gladly share your emotional burdens, because they are your friends.
Besides, what else have you got?
“They don’t deserve forgiveness!”
She doesn’t deserve my forgiveness, or the forgiveness of her loved ones. She doesn’t deserve anything but to be alone. Yet when I turn the tables and think, “Does she have the right to hate me?” All I think about is how when I am hurt, she is vindicated. I ruined her life, but she can at least take comfort in ruining mine.
Today, you see, she appeared to simply not see me. We drove up, with the kids, as she was walking the dog. When she saw us (me?) she just stopped. Some days she walks out of the house, stares at the car, and walks back inside. She isn’t worthy of hatred, only pity.
“Even if I do forgive, will I feel any better?”
Will you? Who knows? I know that I’ve never felt WORSE for letting go negative feelings. It’s not like I forget. I’m consistently reminded of her, in my own life, in the actions of others around me who remind me of her.
But it’s less than when I strove to hold on to it, like a life ring buoy. The anger has eased, rather than disappeared. I feel a dull anger, an irritation, a spark of bitterness…but it’s like the anger I feel towards an inconsiderate driver that cuts me off. Because that person means very little to me. Not nothing. Just not very much.
“But I—”
Stop.
I could hold on to it. I could be “strong.” I could never let it go, burn with it, fortify myself with it. Build a wall to protect against anyone else who might hurt me.
But I don’t. Because it’s not bullshit for me to want to forgive. For me to want to let go. It stops the bitterness from eating me up inside.
Because otherwise you become like her. One of the broken, the lost, that cannot overcome hurt and are passed by, daily, by those who don’t even see them anymore.
I do not wish to lose the chance at other loves and happinesses, because I am too focused inwardly on the very worst of myself.
And I think you owe yourself the same.