FORGIVE ME

What feels like a long time ago, I remember climbing into the passenger seat of your car and you asking me how I felt after my first therapy session went? The best way I could possibly describe how I felt was “lighter” and I continue to use that term to this day. There have been several events and epiphany’s since then, and I feel the longer time goes on and the more work I do on myself the lighter I feel.

You ever turn over a rock as a kid and find a whole little ecosystem underneath? It’s a very similar experience. Once you flip over the big old anger rock, colonies of shame and eight legged guilt spider start to crawl out in droves. An ocean of should/shouldn’t have statements that can never be changed drowning you all at once.

I should have stayed with Dad

I should have applied myself more

I shouldn’t have said I hate you

I shouldn’t have let her manipulate me

 

Eventually over time you start to forgive yourself bit by bit, but forgiveness to me has always felt like excuses. I was just a kid, I didn’t know any better. I couldn’t have predicted the future. I never could have swooped in to get Amber the fuck out of Claresholm and ride off into the sunset. I will never be able to go back and be a better brother, son or friend. Thoughts like these have been slowly decreasing in volume, a sort of shaping of the stone before the real detail work on the sculpture can begin. A lot of it I look back now and laugh at, and there are plenty of moments of adorable awkwardness I wouldn’t trade for anything.  But there are a few tent pole moments that seem almost entirely unmovable, and all of those moments are firmly rooted in my own guilt and shame. 

The big stuff has a strange haze of unreality to it, but it’s those tiny details I can’t shake. Moms face covered in bruises from throwing herself into the holding cell walls. A journal burning in the kitchen sink. Being afraid to come home after school every day. 4 EMT’s standing on the front line saying there’s nothing they can do. The sound of a car door snapping off in down town Calgary.

I think the worst part of it is those qualities she always had I see in myself. I spent so long marinating in her poison that it has somewhat molded me to her image, or even worse I was always this way from the start.

I love here but I hate her. I have no respect for her, and I really don’t care what she thinks. Is forgiveness even possible? Does she need to be forgiven?