Forgiveness

I think that forgiveness is one of the hardest things we, us humans, must learn to do in life. As we encounter people that treat us unfairly, disappoint us, or hurt us, it is really difficult depending upon the situation and how deep the emotional wounds go to forgive someone that may have done us wrong and truly let go.

Maybe it would be easier to forgive by first defining what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness is not saying that what the other person did to you is OK. It also does not mean you have to stay in touch with this person and that you're required to be friends with them. Years ago I had a coworker that said some horrible, unprovoked things to me over email (after we were both working for other companies.) A few years later she found me on LinkedIn and apologized. I accepted her apology and her invite to get connected there -- and we exchanged some brief emails. But I also knew I did not want to stay in touch with her nor was I required to do so. Ever since then, she has not reached out to me and I have no desire to reach out to her. However, I did forgive her -- and recently realized that perhaps she is bi-polar or has some other undiagnosed disorder that set her off and caused her to snap at me the way she did. 

And at the end of the day, that's what forgiveness is: realizing that everyone is "only human and born to make mistakes" as an old Billy Joel song goes. This week, I'm happy to say that I made some huge strides and accomplished exactly that. I've made a vow to myself not to rehash the whole experience in writing again, but earlier this week I told my readers on my other blog about what happened last summer. There's a couple of paragraphs in there about exactly how I was able to forgive. I think the person in question got a little obsessed and carried away with the fantasy of me...I think his son's disability and his career choice makes life stressful. And I also think he didn't anticipate falling as hard for me like he did. 

Writing the other blog post truly helped me forgive and forget about the whole thing once and for all. It's time to move on. I'm thinking of trying online dating again (I blogged about this but then took the post down, because I knew I still wasn't 100% ready.) 

Also, I was reminded of Oprah Winfrey's quote on forgiveness, which I remember her stating on her show back in the day: "Forgiveness is letting go of the hope that the past could have been any different." Indeed -- I wrote recently about making peace with the past. You can't go back and change it. All you have is the now.