Every day my supervisor has a different short quote or inspirational message written on a whiteboard on her office door. Today's message reached me to my core:
"Forgiveness is letting go of all hopes for a better past."
I've never thought about it that way, that I'm holding on to an irrational hope that my past could be different. But I do frequently think about what if the past was different. I think of the childhood I should have had, without confusing messages and outright abuse. If my father had been different. If the world had been different. If I had been protected. I long for this. And maybe that is why I find forgiveness so difficult. How can I let go of resentment if the trauma isn't something long past, but something I still carry with me, hoping it could have been different?
I said something to my supervisor that I liked the quote, and she emailed me a link to a meditation on forgiveness. I read it, but I'm too afraid to try it. I'm not able (willing?) to let myself feel that pain right now. I've been there. I know how much pain and darkness is inside of me. And it may be true that the only way to let go of it is to experience it. It's certainly true that I carry the past close to me, always partly-experiencing the pain, but blocking most out. I want for the past to not have that control over me. But I feel like no matter what I've tried, things may get better for a while, but in the end everything goes back to being the same.
No. I have made progress. I can think about certain things that happened to me without falling to pieces. I can hold a conversation with my father without much discomfort. I have to remember that I have made progress, no matter how slow. It may take fifty years, but I'll get there if I live long enough and I keep trying, right?
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