Selected Correspondence II: I thought that I would be better at this.

I thought that I would be better at this.

I never thought forgiveness was difficult. I’m coming to see that that is because I’ve never really been hurt before, at least, not in any way like this.

I realized that I was merely a casualty of my parents’ divorce, and so forgiveness came in understanding that the offense wasn’t ever really against me. Likewise, in their subsequent remarriages, my parents’ spouses were no offense to me, but rather were filling spaces in my respective parent’s life which in turn affects my own, but less when put in perspective.

I thought I was a forgiving person because I got over the things that hurt and through the past few years of struggling to love someone I always had an underlying hope and faith that love, however flawed and human I made it manifest, would nonetheless prevail. Thus when we’d argue (or fight as she so termed such conflicts) I could always love her a moment later. When she needed a break I gave her one, understanding it to be just that, and as it turned out to be something more, when she started seeing other people, a mere hour in her company was yet enough for me to assuage most doubts because I could see that she still loved me, and forgiveness came inevitably after any vestige of hope returned. Of course as the years went by in frustration the hour sometimes took some days to get there, still, we danced a month before her wedding and I thought for sure we were in love.

Now I’m alone in this city, and despite the warmth of late I’ve been cold since the 13th, wrapped up in my own insecurities, and every night I can’t escape the thought that all of these past three months have been a nightmare and I’ll soon awake to love again, but not a different person, it’s still her, and it’s hope in vain this time and so no forgiveness has yet followed me here and I don’t know where to find it. All it does is hurt from one day to the next. I have managed to keep it numb most times, in public, but alone I feel it. Around her family, our friends, driving towards the places I used to see her and think about her, and there is nowhere in my life that isn’t so, because she’s still in my thoughts every day, though they’re not so loving anymore. It hurts. It keeps me from anyone who might ease the pain, or share what small successes or failures I’ve endured in life for want of having to love again into a void where all my love is spent and my investment is lost and married, and I can see no future past another unrelenting day tomorrow full of silent torture and my inability to forgive a pain too great to forget.

Forgive me.
Help me to forgive.



(I'm not sure I've progressed much further than the sentiment here expressed, despite the fact that these experiences are years old. It is this broken relationship that haunts, stifles, and informs my present far more than it should. Again, I would it were another. Nonetheless, the conclusion is one I could still use more often than not, be it for this same relational scar, or fresher wounds I bear. Forgiveness isn't easy.)

- TPK