forgiveness

I don't think that I'm someone that easily holds grudges. The ones that I do notice clinging to me I try to let go of, I don't want to live my life that way. It's to hard to live life that way. Grudges take attention and energy and drain you.

I know that I will have to forgive my father. I'm not entirely sure that some part of me hasn't already. But does this mean, if I forgive him, that I then have to have him in my life? To me that seems like an even worse drain of energy. Having my father in my life seems like it would make me more unhappy than happy.

There is another person who I know I need to forgive. This person is someone to whom I was feircely loyal for years, someone I looked up to. At one point this person started doing things that to me felt like a slap in the face. Because of my loyalty and love of this person I kept going back, again and again, to get slapped in the face again and again. And then I stopped. Because I figured out I was better than that. My love of this person did not die, but I stopped thinking that I had to put up with the abuse (all of this is figurative, no one actually slapped me). Now this person is coming to me and wanting to be a part of something that I built in defiance of them (I doubt this person knows that's why I built it). I don't know if I can say no to this person. I don't know if I can fit them into my new thing either.

Then there is another person I need to forgive, a friend. Someone who I thought would be my friend forever. This person went through a very hard time a couple of years back and I did everything in my power to help them through it. Instead I got pulled down with this person. This left me scarred. If I forgave this person, I would want to try and rebuild this friendship. But you know what I feel a lot of the time when meeting NEW people? That I already have enough friends. I have lots of them - I am very blessed - and they are wonderful. Is it worth the effort?

And that's what I want to know. I know that not forgiving people is like cancer. It will eat at you and make you bitter and you will fester and rot. But does forgiving, really truly forgiving, completely forgiving someone mean that I have to fit them into my life? If it does, then is it worth the effort?

I don't know.
I don't know yet.

I've been spending a lot of time alone. I don't mind it so much. It's not like before when I was hiding from the world and that was a really bad thing and a really quick way for me to slip deeper and deeper into depression. This is different. This feels more like . . . getting to know myself. I am writing - a lot - I have a ton of ideas. I am working on myself - physically and mentally - I am reading things that I always wanted to read. I am figuring things out - I'm not trying to fix myself. That's what I always said before (when I was in trouble) "I'm going to fix it." I can't fix me. But I am working on myself. I am making discoveries and I am having revelations. Some of these things I don't want to share with anyone. I don't want to give anyone a detailed account of how I'm filling my days or the new goals I have discovered, these new and wonderful things that have brought me peace. I just want to do them. This is going to sound really cheesy - but it's like I'm hybernating, think of me in a cacoon. I will emerge. I don't want people to fully know what I am doing in that cacoon, I just want to appear on the other side of it, and have people see me. Nothing dramatic, I just kind of like not needing to . . . have any other witness to this time in my life but me. It's nice. Also it takes the pressure off. I keep writing Stephanie about these projects I've started and am really stoked about, only to have to realize by the time I write my next letter that I'm no longer interested in those things. But it is really interesting to see which ones are sticking. It's really interesting to see that I am sticking. Me, Laura, Roux, Jernigan. I'm sticking. And that's nice, too. I'm not stuck (well, I am but that's not exactly how it feels right now) I'm not sticking to a place, I'm just . . . allowing myself to . . . be me for a while. And that's nice, too.

So maybe when I come out of this on the other side, maybe when I emerge, maybe when I appear, I will have an answer. An answer to forgiveness. Or maybe I'll just be strong enough to do it, and maybe I'll be ready for whatever the consequences are.

None of this is to say that I don't need forgiveness. That I don't need to be forgiven. I tried to seek forgiveness from my sister for some things in the far distant past the other day. She didn't want to talk about it. She said she didn't remember who did what to whom or how our relationship was then, she just cared that we have a great relationship now. And that shut me up. But then again, I thought, maybe I needed to talk about it. Maybe I needed to hear it. Maybe I need to know. Maybe I need forgivness. I know that whenever I do forgive the people I mentioned about I will be asking them for theirs in return. I know what I am capable of. I know that I need to seek forgiveness.

and that's nice, too.