Forgiveness
A meditation on past hurts
All lessons, realizations and insights in life are iterative. You never just learn one thing once and integrate it then there. You often rewind and revisit it, throughout life. Sometimes you forget what you learnt at 15 only to find yourself facing that wisdom at 30, not necessarily because you forgot but because an opportunity presented itself for a new perspective. That’s how life is, and it would be stale and boring if you only ever had to do things once. Just like all music in the world is composed of only seven notes, and all paintings are comprised of three primary colors, living means being caught in patterns, rhythms and flows.
Your life is an endless art work crafted from the most humble tools: your mind, your body and the world around you.
My own memories prompted this introspection, memories of my mistakes in choosing the wrong people, and how starkly I see the patterns that had eluded me whilst in the midst of said mistake. I had this repeated question pop into my head: how come I had Edem, Scipio, David, Jamiel, Gabriel, Cameron and Patrick all come to my life, one after the other, even after I thought I’d sorted out the very issue that had attracted me to the previous person in the first place? I was 17 when I mistook Edem The Rapist for a kind, generous lover; I was 18 when I met Scipio The Dismissive who had no qualms about casual cruelty; I was 22 when David The Nice Guy turned out not be quite so nice and conscientious, after pretending to be a friend to me for 3 years and switching up the moment he licked the honey pot; I was 22 when Jamiel The Muscle Guy approached me at the gym and 24 when I realized how deeply that man hated me despite being the one to initiate a relationship with me; I was 25 when under the spell of curiosity met Vampires Cameron and Gabriel, two deeply broken middle aged men twice my age who wanted to relieve their youth through me; and I was 26 when I was triangulated by Patrick The Fool because he wanted to prove something to the woman he had been pining after for years, and who did nothing but condescend to him.
Ironically, their dismissive, avoidant and cruel natures were never quite the issue even though I wanted it to be. The consistent issue was me emotionally dissociating from that truth every time it was reinforced by their behavior. And of course, I further dissociated by looking for reasons why they treated me like that, how they could consciously act the way they did. Asking why put me further away from the actual answer I sought: how to deeply choose and love myself in every waking moment. I had punished myself repeatedly after each man, swearing to never put myself through such a person again and yet, again and again, the same man kept finding me even when I made it difficult to be found.
The real pattern was that I had deeply neglected myself, and that this had been reinforced by my upbringing. I had grown so accustomed to being neglected and unconsidered, I had never actually questioned that from my caregivers and the people I let into my life. And the thing about that pattern, like most patterns, is how ingrained, practiced and rehearsed they were. I never saw the neglect - I saw my resilience and strength. This isn’t to say I’m not resilient. I am, and always have been resilient. However, this resilience is an overused muscle that had to compensate for the care and love that my neglect had stepped in to replace.
I am proud of the woman I am, and I write this because I don’t see the value in ruminating and hurting myself over men who were nothing but cruel. They were not significant for their ability to inflict wounds, they were insignificant precisely because they couldn’t inspire anything more than hurt.
I’m so much more than the hurt and disrespect they could inflict, and truly they wasted their own time to experience more of me and what I had to offer. Why hate myself for that?
I forgive myself every day, every year for what was done to me, for what I could not understand and for the choices I made believing they were right.
I forgive myself every day.