cndybndi

Build a bridge

What I’m about to write might not make sense or resonate with anyone, but that’s okay.

There has been this one person in my life who has lied to me on several occasions over the last 2 years. 

This whole time… I thought that in choosing to stay and not leave, I had essentially “forgiven” him for his actions. In actuality… I never did forgive each incident because I was still recounting events to friends and still reminding him from time to time of the things that he had done. I think the only thing I did, was continue to feel sorry for myself.

I drowned myself in self-pity. I felt like I was running out of options and I needed a new approach. For the longest time, I had been so consumed by feeling sorry for myself that I never stopped to think about the possibility that there was something I could have been doing better. I wasn’t telling the whole world about the things he had done but I knew that I was actively searching for sympathy from friends. 

I’ve realised now, that there isn’t much strength to be drawn from sympathy. Sympathy only served to further validate my self-pity and was not constructive, but rather destructive. Overall, it’s just stagnant in nature: he hadn’t changed and I wasn’t growing as a person.

I’ve recently started thinking about what it means to forgive a person and how would you know whether you’ve truly forgiven someone. It’s not as simple as saying “I forgive you” and for you to then tell your neighbour about how much of a douche the person was. It’s a conscious choice you commit yourself to and above all, it’s when you stop feeling this burning need to make the person feel guilt. 

I told him that I was giving him a clean slate and that I would no longer hold anything from the past against him ever again. It was important, because it would have been difficult for him to change with the guilt weighing him down. Negativity breeds negativity.

I lifted the guilt and told him that his past actions shouldn’t define him or weigh him down and that the only thing that should really define him, is the path that he forges for himself in becoming the better person that he wants to be. For a number of reasons, we can’t be friends at this point in time… but this was something I had to do, to truly part ways mutually without bitterness.

I’m not saying everyone should just build a bridge and get over things, because it is circumstantial. I always hear about those news stories where parents offer their forgiveness to a person who has murdered their son and wonder how? and why? Forgiveness isn’t saying what happened was acceptable… it just acknowledges the past and calls upon the person to be a better person.

After I had given my little speech, he talked about not having felt this calm and settled about everything within himself for a long time. Positivity breeds positivity.

I feel cleansed!