There are the small things.
- Becca told me when we became friends that she's weird and sometimes drops off the face of the earth and then reappears and I need to be okay with that to be friends with her. Mostly it's fine because I have so little time for friends anyway but sometimes when I need a girl-friend and Becca is off having time for herself or whatever I get furious with her. Gotta let go of that and forgive because she was totally straightforward from the beginning
- I need to forgive Josh for not being able to be comfortable living the way I do, or close to it. It's not his fault he's spoiled and filthy rich. Or whatever.
Then there are big things. In some religions or cultures they say it's really important to forgive. Like it's important for the person who was wronged. Something about letting go of the anger or whatever and being able to move forward with their lives. I'm not of any of those religions or cultures so I hold on to grudges forever. When someone would do something bad my mom used to say that they were on her shit list. I keep a shit list too. It's rare for people to get off it once they're on. If I were someone who felt the need to forgive people in order to let go there might be some airplane hijackers needing some forgiveness but I'm totally content hating them. I don't even care if that makes me die four months earlier than I would otherwise or whatever that statistic is. I might need to forgive a certain aunt who didn't even fulfill the lowest level of Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs.There are some school psychologists and counselors who might need forgiving when I went to them in 2001 to tell them my youngest sister completely stopped talking and I was scared that her heart had broken in some kind of real medical way, and they did absolutely nothing to help her start talking, or to help me deal with her sudden muteness. So yeah. Lots of anger. Lots of people to forgive.
2 comments:
I wonder, since you've been respectful all this time about what Becca said you'd need to be okay with and she surely appreciates it, whether you could revisit the subject with her. Say that you've been doing as she requested and you don't mind respecting her wishes and are glad she explained that from the start, but in a situations like XYZ (give a good example of what a time when you need a girl-friend is), you'd really like to be able to call upon her. Ask her whether that would be acceptable, whether she could be there for you even though she's in the middle of a dropped-off-the-face-of-the-earth time. Let her know you are fine with whatever her answer is, but you just wanted to clarify, because you value her friendship so you want to both continue to act respectfully but also don't want to assume she can't be there for you when you could really use her friendship, her counsel/support/good cheer. Assure her that if the answer is yes, you wouldn't abuse the privilege, would only make use of it in situations like the example you gave. What do you think?
Also, on the topic of forgiveness, did you end up accompanying Josh to Yom Kippur services, or was that when you were sick?
Then there are big things. In some religions or cultures they say it's really important to forgive. Like it's important for the person who was wronged.
That can be really hard to do if the party that did the wronging hasn't apologized and asked for forgiveness.
A lot of what you write here about not being able to let go in order to live one's life seems to oppose what you wrote in one of the Ground Zero Mosque posts. Forgiveness is a complicated matter.
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