Old Shelves

I never truly understood the saying “forgive and forget”. It is hard enough to differentiate our feelings from someone or something that hurt us, let alone forget it all together? I must admit, I haven’t quite mastered the skill of forgiveness, which according to my work mom (yes, I had a work mom when I worked at Rogers!) meant the same thing as forgetting. Work mom also pointed out that I have a tendency to hold grudges. But I know that if I’m holding a grudge it’s because I’ve made it quite clear that forgiveness has not been granted to you. This whole paragraph pretty much sums up my issues related to grudges and forgiveness- clearly! It’s something that I know I need to work on. Part of the People Detox is letting go and you can’t let go of someone or something if you’re planning on holding a grudge. It’s a catch 22 for me, I want to let it go, but I don’t know how, maybe I can figure out how, but will it be convincing enough?!

Carrie Bradshaw from Sex in the City wrote, “Can you really forgive if you can’t forget?” Of course, this was when she cheated on Aden and asked for forgiveness. Aden being the wonderful boyfriend he was forgave her and took her back. However, Carrie felt that she was still being secretly punished for her mistake when Aden was acting a bit distant. Here’s the interesting part, it’s not clear to the audience if Aden was doing this intentionally or if Carrie’s guilt was magnifying the distance and change in behavior. But this of course is from the perspective of someone who is seeking forgiveness. Maybe it’s easier to forgive someone when they have asked for it. I suppose this also depends on the apology you receive. Because we all know it’s not enough to say I’m sorry… you also have to mean it! But how do you forgive and forget someone if their apology doesn’t seem genuine OR if they don't apologize at all?  That is the million dollar question…

I think with me, I’ve never really given the act of forgiveness much thought. I’ve always felt that forgiving someone ‘made’ whatever they did or said okay. Naturally, I first need to change my perception of what forgiveness means. It obviously doesn’t ‘make’ things okay- it shouldn’t! So because I didn’t know how to forgive, I chose to "shelf" it instead? This needed to change. You can’t remove people and situations from your life if you’re secretly shelving the whole thing. You’re giving it new shelf life! I’ve been thinking about this for the past few weeks now. I thought of all the times I’ve asked to be forgiven and what my reasons were. When someone forgave me, part of me felt like I’ve grown from the experience. Yes, there were times where I had to apologize for the sake of doing so (such a hypocrite… I know!) But the point is, I needed to grow even if there were people out there that owed me a million apologies. The only thing that is stopping me is my lack of ability to forgive in the event an apology is not present.

Here goes: To facilitate the proper disposal of overdue people and situations I have shelved, I have come up a rule of thumb. “Forgiveness” is MY personal acknowledgment (in the event a mutual one is not present) of someone or something being “f% cked up” in my life that I would like to have removed. So maybe, forgiving then would mean – It happened. And because you chose not to take responsibility for it, I have decided to remove it from my life so that I can continue to be happy. (Light bulb) Also, don’t forget to toss out the shelves too.