Forgive Me (64/90)

Found a swimsuit today. Woot woot!

I think I'm going to have to lay down with music playing and think for about 15 minutes before I start writing. I like the idea of getting back into bigger ideas, not simple trivialities of my daily life. Today I had the Spring Awakening soundtrack playing, and I was listening to "I Believe." One of the lines is "I believe all will be forgiven," and that's where today's post is heading.

I am, like a lot of people, able to forgive. I think I forgive too easily at times. But I never forget, and sometimes it's over trivial things, like an offhand comment. I know that a lot of people say that they forgive, but they never forget. But if you don't forget, then have you actually forgiven the person?

If you're keeping what they've done/said in the back of your mind, then you could easily use it against them either in an argument, or when you're appealing to them to do something for you. And then when you bring it up, the other person feels like you're not actually over it, and that they haven't actually been fully forgiven. And they may have a point to this.

If it's something that still angers or upsets you, even after you think you've forgiven them, then you probably haven't fully forgiven them. Yes, you've forgiven them enough to return to some state or normalcy, but things between you haven't been completely settled, and closure hasn't been reached yet.

If that's the case, then I probably haven't forgiven a lot of people for things they have done or said to me. That may actually be everyone in my life that I haven't forgiven. Or does it mean that whatever happened that sticks in your mind changed how you viewed the person? Because a lot of the things I have kept in the back of my mind have been hurtful, and have changed how I saw the person (and sometimes myself).

I feel like I've forgiven them. So have I not, or is my forgiveness not true forgiveness? Is it something that is done for the time being, in order to avoid more conflict? I believe that forgiveness is when someone has done something to you, and you can put it behind you and continue on with your lives. It doesn't get brought up often (if at all), and is something that they are remorseful about.

If that's the case, then I probably shouldn't have forgiven a few people, because they hadn't shown remorse for what they had said or done. But I give people countless chances to prove that they've changed, so that's forgiveness in there. Or blind hope. And sometimes I forgive people who don't even know that they've messed up, because they are silly things that I shouldn't let bother me.

And even if you say you've forgiven someone, and believe that you have, something will come up eventually to make you re-think that forgiveness, and you may find out that you haven't fully forgiven them. Those points in time can be horrible or wonderful, depending on the setting of the epiphanies. They stick with us, because sometimes people change if we do or don't forgive them.

I've probably forgiven too many people, too many times. Please don't give me a cause to have to forgive.