Popular Posts

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Forgiveness

It's been a while since I've been on here. I was out of commission all of last week with a migraine. My first and hopefully last. Talk about a wake up call for me to pay better attention to managing and gaging my stress level. I can not go and do all the time like a lot of people in my life. I try, but eventually my body makes me slow down in one way or another, and it's never for just one day. It feels like I was knocked upside my head by the universe saying, HEY, slow down, take care of yourself. I got the message loud and clear and am now on my way to being better about taking care of me. First things first, a massage on Saturday....yes please! :)

On top of my issues last week, my husband's best friend had a mild stroke on Friday (he's 33) and I found out that my uncle has a really bad cancer, and has less than a year to live. As you already know, my grandfather is dying and has started hospice care. Needless to say, things are getting hard in my life. If there's ever a time to start taking better care of myself, it's now. I have a hard enough time with death, but 2 people going down at the same time is going to be very hard! So, it's time to start taking advantage of the time I do have with the loved ones in my life and making it a point to have no regrets.

I had a visit with my Aunt a couple weekends ago. I think I mentioned something about that happening in my last post. I had only seen my aunt once in the past 6 years and that was at my cousin's wedding earlier this year. The reason I had not seen my aunt is so long, is that when my grandmother died there was a falling out between her and my mom. I in turn had resentment towards her for the way the situation was handled and the fact that I got nothing of my grandmother's after she passed....nothing. I was also a drug addict at that time and did my best not to spend time with any family. I was much more interested in partying and hanging out with my friends. Time passed, wounds healed (on my end) and I got clean. I reconnected with my cousin last year and in turn found out that my aunt had no ill will towards me and wanted to reconnect as well....without my mom. It took me some time to be okay with this. My aunt is not known to be the most loving and kind person around. I was afraid of how I was be treated after everything that happened. Then, I saw my aunt at my cousin's wedding and everything was great! She was nice, happy, nice to The Man (which wasn't always the case) and made me feel very comfortable with her. So, all of that being said, our recent visit was very nice. She brought over some healthy, yummy food and we chit chatted for several hours while The Baby played with her toys.

While talking to my aunt I came to understand why she is the way she is....bitchy and cold. She prides herself on being a bitch, her own words, and talks like it's a badge of honor. She really does have a loving heart deep down. I am usually really good at bringing this quality out of people for some reason. The more we talked, the more I realized that she was holding onto a lot of anger. She's angry about the way my uncle treated my grams (he was a drug addict for at least 25 years, in and out of jail, stealing from my grams, so on and so on). She's angry at my uncle for being a drug addict, even though he's been clean and out of jail for 15 years. She's angry that my mom (the oldest of 4 kids) left home when she was 14 (my aunt, not my mom) which left her the next oldest to take care of her 2 younger siblings (my grams grew up in an orphanage and didn't know how to be a mom, no one is perfect). She's angry that her dad was an alcoholic and the last conversation they had before he died was not a conversation, but a fight with a lot of mean things being said. She's angry at my mom for not being available when their grandmother died (it was a REALLY bad time in my mom's life, like REALLY bad). She's angry that my mom couldn't help with my grams when she was dying, in the way that she wanted her to help. And when when my grams died she realized that she had never really grieved all of the deaths prior to hers. It all hit her all at once and broke her. It broke her so bad, she decided to go a grief counselor. She saw the counselor twice and decided she learned all that she needed to know on how to deal with the situation and never went back.

My aunt is 56 years old and has never forgiven anyone in her life for their mistakes or wrong doings. I think that forgiveness is a huge part in someones life. If you can forgive others and especially yourself, for wrong doings, it only helps you in the long run. I see that holding onto all of that anger and resentment for so many years has made her a hard, cold, lonely person. I never, ever want to feel the way the energy that radiates off of her feels.

When I was thinking about typing this post I decided to look at myself and reflect on things that have happened in my life and whether or not I have forgiven people for their trespasses. Yes, I have forgiven my mom for not being a perfect mom all the time. I have forgiven my step dad for the times he was not perfect and for the way he treated others around him at times. I have forgiven my dad for moving across the country when I was 15, not coming to visit me as often as promised and not moving back home until I was 26. I have forgiven my dad for being an alcoholic and not being a perfect parent all the time. I have forgiven my husband for our hard times. And most importantly I have forgiven myself for not being the perfect kid and partner. There are still a couple of things that I have not forgiven myself for, which I want to work on. I haven't forgiven myself for the type of pet owner I was during my partying days. My dog at the time suffered because of my behavior and I still can't forgive myself when I think back to the conditions he lived in at times. I hope to forgive myself for this eventually. I also have not forgive the 2 men who raped me when I was 17. Just can't do it. One ended up in a bad motorcycle accident, which left him mentally disabled and the other became a crack addict. Even though they have both suffered in their lives since they made me suffer in mine, I have not been able to forgive them yet. I want to be able to one day, but just can't do it yet. Hence, I'm not perfect either.

I do however want to make it a priority to forgive people for their imperfections going forward. No one is perfect, we are all just human and doing the best we can with the tools we have.

I don't want to end up a bitter old lady, alone and mad at the world. This I know for a fact!

I want to teach my daughter that no one is perfect and we all make mistakes. It's how we deal with those mistakes and learn from them that makes us who we are. I want to teach her to forgive people that hurt her feelings. Most of the time it hurts them to know they've hurt someone else. And most people won't admit to that. I want to teach her to be kind regardless of someone else's position or disposition in life. Inside we are all the same. We all just want to be loved and treated with kindness and respect. The hard part is learning how to deal with those around us who don't have the skills to always behave that way.

So that's it. My deep thoughtful post for this week. I'm hoping to bring some fun joyful stuff to the table next time. :)

No comments:

Post a Comment