Forgiveness

College really has helped me grow through learning to forgive others. I confronted many issues from my eighteen years precollege but also came to understand relationships and how to deal with people better. People let us down and upset us. We need to forgive them but forgiving them does not make okay what they did to us.

I distinctly remember last school when one of my best friends, Danielle, was supposed to come visit me at FSU for a weekend. We talked about it over the week and I came up with all these things I needed to do before she arrived. That Friday morning she texted saying how she couldn’t come with a few reasons listed and I remember thinking how much she is exaggerating! Even though there was some truth behind her reasons, I knew it was basically lying to me. I know her and how she words things and it was off. I was mad not so much that she couldn’t come but that she was betraying our friendship with what were lies to me. I may be disappointed or sad when things don’t happen but I am more so hurt when I am being lied to, deceived or stood up. The rest of that weekend and into the next week I didn’t want to talk to her.

This semester there was a guy who said how “cool and cute” I am but every single time we made plans, especially through his initiation, he cancelled for one reason or another. After distancing myself from him for a little while, I opened myself back up to the possibility of hanging out. We picked a day, decided to go to the fair and he was “positive” he had nothing else to do. However, when the time came for us to choose a time the day before, he went MIA when it came to communicating with me. Then when the day came and he still had not reached out to me, I was furious! I was furious at him for reaching a new low and not saying anything to me and I was mad at myself for allowing myself to be put into that position. I wanted to just yell at him and say how much of a great person I am and how inconsiderate and rude it is not even having the courtesy to send me a text cancelling. Respect me enough to know I can handle the truth. I wanted to reach out to him and say these things but I didn’t.

I am most upset when I get excited like a five-year old the night before Christmas but I find out it was for nothing. I wanted to stay mad at this guy and I wanted to stay mad at Danielle. But the thing about staying mad is that it doesn’t hurt the person we are mad at. We have to expel energy into staying mad but also into remembering why we are mad. I forgave him for flaking on me, because I don’t know why it happened but furthermore, it is healthier for me to let it go. I forgave Danielle because the people we care about most are going to let us down every once in a while.

I forgive and gently remember. I can’t forget but I also can’t hold people to their past mistakes. Most importantly I forgive myself for feeling like a fool or that I did something wrong by vulnerable Forgiving ourselves is where I think we are stuck most at because we don’t want to be hurt by that same person again. We don’t want to seem like an idiot. When I forgive, I just become a little bit wiser, cautious and aware. In the end “Forgiveness means giving up the hope that the past could be any different,” and moving towards the future.

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Letting Go of Anger

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I hope you have enjoyed this post! Feel free to comment, follow/tweet me on Twitter @JarrydK, or ask me questions anonymously at http://formspring.com/jarrydboyd.