I Forgive Me?

Seems forgiveness is always a subject/action that is outwardly projected. “I forgive my neighbors trashy yard because he is old and cannot help it.” What about inward forgiveness? Forgiveness of ourselves, grace even. Not much in that realm I hear these days, but I live under a generational rock away from the kids with their feelings and sensitivities. I am interested in starting this internal settling of my past. I would say this feels like it would be a journey of personal forgiveness but also includes the fact that I do not regret my past. Regrets only mean I have unfinished business. Let me be honest, I do have one regret, it’s a big one. Not going into too much detail, something happened to a family member, and I could have reacted a different way, but I did not. I was scared. Not only myself but my family members. I chose to acknowledge what had happened, addressed internally with the participants and we moved forward. Looking back, I should have stood my ground, did what I felt was the right thing at the time but was too afraid to do the correct thing. I think that fear came from a similar circumstance in my own past where again, I didn’t do anything about it, instead internalized it and moved forward. Obviously, this has stuck with me forever and perhaps the time has come to release myself. Give myself some grace, maybe even forgive myself; even though that feels impossible now. There are even circumstances that have happened more recently that I have not spoken out about but only internally and never addressed with myself or others; swept under my proverbial dirty carpet. Time to focus on those things that have haunted me. I’m sure this has been part of the midlife falling out, along with mother nature torturing my mind/ body and Satan soul crushing existence whispering in my ear.

I have been thinking, I don’t know where to begin with all of this. Speaking truths comes to mind, but it was so long ago, what is really going to happen, if anything. Do I even want something done about it? No, not really. I want to formally accept this as part of who I am; has participated in what has made me, me. But I struggle with that. Again, I really don’t know my approach but starting here, in my blog, seems fitting. Maybe all I want is to be brave enough to mention without context (no judgement wanted). Maybe that could be enough to get started and perhaps, one day I will reveal and mend some of those internal cracks.

Looking at more items that I do not ever regret, I feel I can move forward with those experiences because without those struggles and bad choices I wouldn’t be the emotion wreck that I am. All the drug use, suspicious activities in my youth are no-brainers; OK, I forgive you (me). I forgive myself for years of not standing up for myself, which I have taught my daughter to always take care of #1. With all my amounting health issues, I forgive myself. I spent decades drinking too much, bad lifestyle choices, not eating right. I may be falling apart, but I can only take those wrong doings and try everyday to turn my health around. This one is hard; I forgive myself for having zero tolerance for drug addicts. I have been consumed by them my whole life and have experience chaos and death enough to last a lifetime. I just can’t associate myself with that; I have lost many relationships because of it. The only thing that feels right is turn my back, too much damage. Another biggie, I forgive myself for trying to have a very tight relationship with my family and it not exactly working out. So many times, I have tried, and efforts are barley reciprocated. Mostly one-sided and they have missed over half my life. They don’t understand me, and I think I don’t understand them. I have always been the black sheep and unfortunately, I still am today. I am left out of a lot. I tried and I’m tired and I must take care of #1 now. I don’t think they care either way.

Then there are those in between moments where maybe I made some bad decisions, never was found out by anyone, but were not in good standing with people/society. I’m not sure what to do with those. Do they even deserve or require forgiveness, perhaps this is where grace steps in. I need to take it easy on myself. I have a past, not the best, not the worst. I was young, but as an adult, I think giving myself grace will be a little bit harder since I cannot forgive myself. It feels like giving myself a get-out-of-jail pass; is that cheating? I will chew on these and one day I will know what to do with the scenarios and trauma. This is a great step forward, spelling out without incriminating myself or others. More will pour out once I am more comfortable with this blog. As a FYI, I have yet to launch the site, I smack myself. I am scared, hence the vagueness. Again, very tiny baby steps.  

Song Inspo: Jelly Roll - Unpretty