an early morning, banking, laundry, and errands to complete. but, for a moment, i review recent correspondance and set this here as a reminder…
i wrote to someone about a month ago on the topic of grudges and forgiveness:
To forgive another is not to say what they did was ok, acceptable, etc… it is to say that one will not permit it to impede one from being the best person they can be to others. To carry a grudge is to choose to remember pain. Why? To what purpose? What benefit ever exists in it?
there is insight here, some wisdom as well. i’ve been slowly burying the last of the lingering memories, preparing to leave the grave, so to speak. these hiccups of emotion and memory often annoy, it feels sometimes as if i am lingering overlong.
but what is overlong? i won’t deny what i feel. that path leads to suffering. trying to be kind to myself, i am patient in ways i have not been in the past.
i loved him. fully. deeply. in spite of his issues, in spite of my own. i let him hurt me in ways that harken back long years and touch areas that are still tender.
was i right to choose this? i think so. even with all that has happened.
was i right to let him hurt me like this? no.
i oscillate between pain and anger still. but the pain is lessening, which is relief and a hopeful thing. there was a time when i thought i simply would dissolve. it is good to know this is not the case.
the anger is lasting longer than expected. anger at him for being so blind, so unwilling, so unable. anger at myself for not accepting it sooner, and for relenting when i first had turned.
i knew long ago it could not sustain. i said as much. i am still trying to unravel why i second-guessed myself. i could blame it on many things, i suppose… but none of them really ‘stick’. i find i am uncomfortable with my not knowing in this area.
i think about the grudges. and i think about the two i yet hold. it is the same dynamic. i carefully review them to try and understand it. i begin to think it comes down to idealism. but that seems too easy an answer. do i possibly ‘get off’ that lightly? i do not know. yet.
in talking with p last night, they told me people who do not respect and will not care are not deserving of regard. intellectually, i can agree with this. so why is it that i am so consumed by a need to think anything other than this? why is it that someone who disrespects me and is careless of me is not automatically set aside?
related question — why does being misconstrued bother me so?
sometimes, i am almost convinced it is a need for control in me. but that just doesn’t ring true. i’m not a controlling person.
other times, i think it is that i just will not accept that anyone could know me and find me other than i am.
but perhaps it is the same thing in the end… being unable to deliver the perspective of me that is wished may well be the same as being unable to control how i am perceived.
but this still doesn’t answer the question — why does it matter to me? admittedly, it does not always matter to me. indeed, there are a number of people whose perspective simply doesn’t bother me at all.
i sense that forgiveness is somehow linked here.
i’m going to have to think on it more. i haven’t any answer.