Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
A long time ago, my friend, Cat, had me put that quote on a paint shop pro tag I made for her. At the time it didn't make any sense to me, I couldn't wrap my head around those words. Today, I get it. I finally get it.
As I was looking through my face book page earlier, I came across a post from one of my roommates in which he had tagged two women, one of whom, the name was very familiar. Sure enough it was someone that I thought I had forgiven for something I thought she had done to me. Turns out I hadn't forgiven her, I just forgot about her and all the pain I endured at the time I knew of her, as she wasn't in my circle anymore. The moment I saw her name, the floodgates opened and all that pain, anger and betrayal came to the surface.
The event that caused those feelings almost destroyed me at the time. I came real close to saying fuck it all and leaving this earthly body. But I didn't. What I came to realize was that I wasn't going to let that event define me. I had too much to live for. And so I let it go and moved on.
For the past year I've been working on my spirituality. Learning how to love myself, forgive myself and forgiving others. I'm the first one to flip off a, "Oh you just have to forgive them or yourself!" Yet, those very words have come back to haunt me. In fact, everything I've been working on did an about face in a few minutes of time.
It's one thing to talk the talk, it's an entirely different thing to walk it. I have often heard the saying that if you don't like someone, it might be because you see something of yourself in that person that you don't like. Well, I DO know that what that woman did was something similar to something I did nearly 30 years ago. It wasn't exactly the same, but close enough for me to see it and acknowledge it. That said, I still wanted to blame her for what happened.
So the first words out of my mouth when I saw my roommate was, how do you know so and so the fat hog! So much for being calm and peaceful, never mind acting like an adult! Just so happened the girl he was with is good friends with the woman I wasn't talking very nice about. I tried keeping my mouth shut but the devil on my shoulder said, Go for it! Hurt her like she hurt you. And so I proceeded to kind of sorta give them the condensed version of why I thought she had hurt me. There I was almost 58 years old, sounding like some distraught teenager. And once the words were out, I couldn't take them back and to be honest, I didn't feel all that great for expressing my anger at her.
In reality, it isn't about her. It's not about the other people involved. It's about me. I can't control what others do. Heck, apparently I can't even control myself. But what I do need to do is forgive myself. Forgive the mistakes I've made. my humanness and love myself anyway.
If I don't do that, then how can I extend that love to other's? I certainly can't go around spewing all that crap that I've let lie in the bottom of my soul! Been there, done that and it doesn't feel very good.. So the only answer is to forgive and while I'm at it, smell the violets.
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