I forgive you

“Not forgiving someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” –Anonymous


I’ve been angry, upset and feeling quite defeated lately. Some days, it feels like I’m insanely running in circles and hoping that on my next pass things will be completely different. I don’t know why I’m angry and I don’t know who I’m angry at, that’s what makes it so crazy. I spend my days feeling like I just lost an important fight and all that’s left for me to do is fold into a ball and give up.

I haven’t always felt like this. No, this feeling just crept up; quietly consumed me and I became its host, like some terrible parasite. “Those people” I tell myself, they are the ones to blame. They’re the ones who refuse to support us, who assume we’re liars and pray each night for us to fail. It’s them I am so angry at; they’re the ones who are ruining my existence. It’s they who are responsible for all the zits on my face and every canker sore in my mouth. THEY did this to ME.

It’s a horrible thing, blaming your misery on someone else; someone whose name you don’t even know, whose face you couldn’t pick out of a crowd. The fact is, they have nothing to do with how I feel. The question I fret over now is, when did I let them in? What day was it when I decided that I was going to let them hurt me? Was it a warm, sunny Tuesday or a cold, miserable Friday? Maybe they crept upon me while I was sleeping, defenseless and calm, silently laughing as they invaded my head. When did I become so weak?

On an incredibly long (and today, painful) run yesterday, it dawned on me: it’s not about me. These people, the ones that hate me; it’s not me they hate. It’s them—I’m just an easier target. I knew what I had to do, I knew there was only one way that I was going to stop being so damn angry; I was going to forgive them. I was going to tell them that I forgive their ignorance, their hatred, their lacking ability to see the future and I was going to stop letting them make my wonderful life completely miserable. They aren't sorry, but I forgive them.

Of all the things in this world I fear, losing someone I love to a tragedy is the most severe I can imagine. Whether it be a drunk driver or a home invasion, my greatest fear, my most severe horror, would be to suddenly lose a loved one. I can’t imagine the pain, fear and anger those left behind feel when something like that happens. How could they not hate the person who ripped a hole in their still-beating heart, those poor people who are left behind to pick up the pieces? Nothing is more amazing to me than when those who survived, those who are left with the pain of losing someone they love, forgive the person who did this to them. They look them in the eye, forgive them and only then can they move on with their lives.

If I don’t do this one thing for myself, I realized, I would spend the rest of my life being no better than those I once hated. For that, I think I owe myself an apology.