Forgiveness

October 19, 2004 | Category:

There are people in your life who've come and gone
They let you down and hurt your pride
Better put it all behind you; life goes on
You keep carryin' that anger, it'll eat you up inside
I've been trying to get down
to the heart of the matter
But my will gets weak
and my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it's about forgiveness
Forgiveness
-The Heart of the Matter, Don Henley

Prologue: This was inspired by my writing "The Turning Point". It has been edited since its original posting today. But it is still not rated "G"

A few months before this picture was taken, my innocence had begun to crumble away. And I've never been able to forgive.

Every story has a beginning. Mine started in a hotel room on a vacation. A guy, a teenager, taking advantage of a puppy-eyed crush.

My life was chaos. My family was chaos. School was chaos. My emotions were chaos.

The next July 4th, still 14 years old, found me celebrating in a park with a group of kids that included him and his girlfriend.

Before the fireworks began, I slipped away and hopped on the subway. Cold and shivering from the rain, I disappeared. An hour later, I ended up at my Aunt’s house and refused to explain how I got there.

My mother’s face, once I was brought home, was a puzzle. I shrugged it off. The night before he'd had his hand under my shirt during Kirshner’s Flower Hour – and I'd liked it. The next day he'd teased my existence in front of a crowd while nuzzling someone else. How to explain?

He was older, and high up on a pedestal that I built for him out of the clay of my own emotions.

The first year blended into the second and ultimately into the 5th. The years of the secret. The years of memories, of friendship that was also something else. Of sitting in his car and talking about the stars overhead. Of his hand creeping up my thigh under the cover of a blanket. Of my heart pounding and the adrenaline rushing behind my ears.

Of sleeping in reach of each other, of touching but never kissing. Unspoken. Hidden.

Hearing him say he didn't want me 'like that' even as he was pulling my nightgown over my head. Quoting song lyrics to me in the dark, and a week later urging me to find a real boyfriend. Someone else. Anyone else.

And then pressing against me jealously when I did.

I never knew, if what happened between us was abuse or love. I still don’t.

It was done once I’d had my Turning Point. The therapist had traced back the self-destructive spiral to that relationship. That relationship that, off and on, I was still in.

My therapist challenged me to bring it out into the open or to end it. To take control of my heart and my body. So like a blonde warrior, I swooped in for a showdown.

Caught a plane, a rental car, and sat across from him in a smoky bar sharing a pack of his Camel Lights. We went back to his place, and spent the night struggling with each other.

By morning, it was clear. He refused to own our history. He would not legitimize us, nor would he apologize. In the face of my righteous empowerment, he offered me silence. No elocution. Like in a courtroom, as a condition of a plea bargain that the defendant must speak clearly and admit what has been done. Closure. Validation. As a path to forgiveness. He denied it to me.

And even at the end, when he watched me get in the car and drive away, he wouldn’t kiss me goodbye because someone might see.

And he never asked me to forgive him.

So I didn’t. Haven’t. For 20 years.

It’s not like I am an unforgiving person. Last Sunday CD made a decision without me. That night he was on his knees beside my chair, eye to eye (because he's that tall and I'm... not). Looking at me and saying "Please, forgive me?" and me saying "Of course."

This morning I lay, still half asleep, and listened to my son packing up for the long trip across the hall. He arrived at my bedside with his sippy cup, his blanky, his stuffed bear, and some toys. I reached out and pulled him, stuff and all, across my body and into the nook where his daddy had slept, empty now with CD gone to work. As Bear was snuggling into the warmth, he accidentally got me hard in the eye with his sippy cup.

"Oh," he said, startled to see me reel back and announce 'Ouch!'. "Sorry, Mommy!" and he leaned in and kissed my owie.

And I said "That's all right, Bear. Just be careful, OK?"

And he said "OK, Mommy."

And it was done. Transgression, forgiveness, done. See? That’s me, easy and comfortable with asking for and granting forgiveness.

Except. Not.

Obviously.

There is this hypocrisy.

That I have allowed myself for 2 decades. A grudge I’ve nursed and used to hurt other people if they disagreed with it. I have refused to accept peace. All those sins of my youth and I’m guarding just this last small piece of it in the shoe of my soul. Hurting.

You know, just a little stone. Which passes by most months and years without me even noticing.

Most of my life is a blessing. There is so much, in every aspect and every day that makes me feel so happy. I savor my husband, I adore my son, my family and friends, I enjoy my job, and there’s a large misshapen pumpkin adorning my little home in Pleasantville.

But there are some heavy decisions that need to be made in my life… and for the last couple of weeks this has been working on my heart. I think… I think that maybe, if I can... I need to stop clinging to this old wound.

It is time to let go. I wish I had some kind of rite, to lead the way. An Erev Yom Kippur.

Because I need to release this. And not for him, who never cared one way or the other.

But for me.

So here it is.

(Deep Breath)

Look, wherever you are. I forgive you.

I forgive you for everything we did to each other. I forgive you for hurting me. I forgive you for denying me.

I forgive you for not being able to count to 10. For denying what was ours.

I forgive you for making me feel like the aggressor. For blaming me for tempting you.

I forgive you for all the things we did, said, and believed. I forgive you for the years that I hurt and dreamed of us. I forgive you not loving me.

I forgive you.

And I ask you, please, to forgive me.

For all the ways that I hurt you. For all the pain that I helped make.

For the end, when I walked into the sun and told my story and dropped a bomb into your world – without warning. And for doing it with malice, with anger, with a desire to cleanse myself at your expense.

For all this I am sorry. If you can, please…

Forgive me, too.

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