I realized after I published this post last night that my desire to apologize to my old friend, and to restore an appropriate degree of our closeness and our knowing each other, is secondary to the person I'm really apologizing to in it.
Am I not really apologizing to myself, for the hurt I inflicted upon myself in my cooperative silence so long ago, and how it contributed to the brokenness that led me to deceive myself into such awful choices and actions later?
If, as I concluded with my therapist, forgiveness is a process we must often invoke iteratively until a set of conditions is met in our relationship with someone who has hurt us - a level of reconciliation and healing appropriate for the degree of intimacy that we desire with that person - shouldn't I expect to have to reiterate it the most often with the one person whom it is impossible to avoid in this life?
Really, what it comes down to is that the choice is really before me all the time: cut myself some slack, or die. I've clearly decided against the latter, which is probably a good thing.
So intermingled with my virtual apology to my friend is an apology to my younger self, too.
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