prompt: who have you forgiven in 2011? what was the journey like that brought you there?
i am still on the journey.
forgiveness, like letting go, is something i am not good at, was not built for. your offenses and transgressions stick in the crannies of my mind forever. i do not know how to forget – i hold on. the most i hope for is that i understand the reasons behind what you’ve done, and that i become ok with them. i shouldn’t say that – it’s a self limiting belief, i know – but i know what i am now and what i am is not a person who forgives.
i have not forgiven her. she was and likely remains a snake of a woman, a doer of evil, a predator, and completely self-consumed. i have trained myself out of checking on her internet spaces, because all they do is rile me – and i have committed to pushing her and all of the wrong she did out of my mind, my heart, my space. i am not always successful. my goal is to let go of my conviction to put her in the hospital if i ever see her in person again. that is not nice and that is probably a bit crazy but that is the truth.
i have forgiven him, to the extent that i will. i don’t know if it happened this year, or last. i know why he left the way he did and i know the sadness and anger that makes you do such things, and i know the places where i was wrong. he broke his promises to me. and it’s alright. i forgive him for leaving.
Forgiveness is never an easy topic – or, necessarily, something that really exists, totally. Maybe it does. I’m not sure.
Beautiful. Forgiveness is hard, for me too at least, but I am glad that you can see that and know how to cope with it. There is power in doing so, whether it be ourselves we forgive or others, it is freeing and important. But it has to be done at ones own pace. Take your time and do it when it is right for you.
I avoided this prompt at all costs, honestly. If I had used it, I would have likely had a county sherrif knocking on my door because I violated a restraining order (that thing I commented on the other day). I will never ever forgive *her* for the things she’s done. I’ve gone a little more than a week without checking her internet spaces, and it’s really hard. My husband wonders why I can’t just make it disappear from my mind. I tell him that it’s harder for me than he thinks. Eventually, maybe. Years from now, our paths may cross. If they do, let it be many many years from now.
That being said, your post, at least the first part, pretty much sums up my entire thought on forgiveness.
yeah, my boyfriend had a hard time understanding why i can’t just “let it go” and it gets difficult to explain why it’s just not that easy. i hope, with time, the sting of it all will fade. it has for me.
I couldn’t do this prompt today because I haven’t reached a place of true forgiveness in regards to my father. I say I have but I don’t know that I ever truly can. It’s hard.
Thank you for putting your thoughts on this out there. I know it had/has to be difficult and I hope you are okay. Hugs.
it would have been an entirely different post if i were writing about family.
I love this because it’s real. Because you’ve been brave enough to admit that you’re not quite there yet and that’s OK and because you actually have found a place of forgiveness which might not be the “universally accepted” way but which works for you and allows you to move on. Well done, love.
I think you’ve made enormous steps in forgiveness.
Forgiveness is a tricky subject, and not really one I understand.
I think it *might* be over-rated.
forgiving, and not forgiving, is probably mostly about being honest with yourself. knowing you’re not a saint, no one else is either, that people have reasons for the things they do concerning you that…have nothing to do with you even though they will affect you so.unbelievably.badly.
I love how honest you are with yourself. I love that I can see you trying in so many ways to be the person that you want to be. You show how you fail, you show how you succeed. That honesty is moving.
“i have forgiven him, to the extent that i will. i don’t know if it happened this year, or last. i know why he left the way he did and i know the sadness and anger that makes you do such things, and i know the places where i was wrong. he broke his promises to me. and it’s alright. i forgive him for leaving.”
this, this moves me as well. <3
There are plenty of people that I don’t forgive for things they have done. For a lot of them, the offenses are more than ten years old. You would think the anger would just wear away, and for some things it does. For others, it just feeds itself.
I am comforted in knowing that some people are still hating me, ten years on and twenty. And not forgiving me, even though I have changed so many times since then and who I am now isn’t even who they hate anymore.