I, Forgiveness

Let me take a moment to celebrate my bitterness.

I put on my pity party hat, straddle up my shit stompers, and hurdle up that incredibly large chip that resides on my shoulders.

I step outside and immediately begin to think of ways to use my trusty, comfortable cloak. If I walk a mile with a street bum, I adjust my pity party hat and wallow in my self-loathing. If someone has the audicity to disagree with me, I place my size 11 shit stomper straight up their ass. When someone makes a mistake that affects me, I unload that incredibly large chip on my shoulder and beat them down with it.

Gosh, I feel better. But I can't leave them there. Sooner or later I must put on my pity party hat again, remove my size 11 shit stomper from their ass, and straddle up my chip and carry on.
I ride daily in the seat of bitterness, leaving a wake of destruction and misery in my path. I hold grudges. I am not a good person.

And then, like magic, the sweet savory salve of forgiveness washes down over me and the hat drips off, the chip shrivels up and falls to ash, and the boots slide off feet forward, leaving me flat on my face in humility.

I once stole a car out of anger. I once told a lie to hide my insecurity. I once made fun of a retarded boy on a playground, stole his paper airplane, and laughed hideously as he chased me around the playground. These things I am not proud of, yet I wear them like badges of honor. The wall of the wounded, pasted in self-righteous glory to sustain the ever hungry tower of ego.

Every single one of us has a story. Some of us come from broken homes. Some of us come from authoritarian homes. Some of us have no home. Each one of us follows the path up into the mountains, and must ultimately make decisions as to which divergence we take to reach the top. Some of us take the rocky, narrow, weed-infested road to the top, where we learn great truths about ourselves and others. Some of us take the paved bike path through the clearing and coast effortlessly to the top, not knowing who we are, but still walking tireless towards the peak.

They say that redemption is right where you fell. That forgiveness is but a pipe dream blathered on by bible-belt preachers and misunderstand, sandle-slapping Jews from Nazereth.

I say that forgiveness is an illusion of a story we once heard long ago, and allowed to dictate our lives. We want to change, but our egos don't allow us too, so we cling to our self-defeating, destructive habits just so that we can remain blissfully in pain.

I say follow a new path. Look past the illusion and see the reality: the bitterness is what you make of it. That forgiveness isn't a deed, but an emotion, coursing through your body like water, eroding at the crud that we let build up over time.

You say you can't forgive. I say you refuse to feel. You say you are bitter. I say that you are dead on the inside. The meaning of life is to live it, and those not living fully are dying on the inside.

Today I strive to feel again. Today I strive to let go of the previous stories that brought me to where I am, and to write a new story in it's place. It's been said by people far wiser than I that "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

I think that that is all wrong. We look for a forgiveness that washes away the past instead of one that embraces the past. We look for a savior who will take us from who we were and transform us into who we want to be, instead of looking for the power that is inside of us, the great storyteller that we silenced long ago.

Give him back his pen, he's aching to write again. Give him his canvas, he wants to draw a new picture. Place a camera in his hand and let him capture the life you live and embed it into a still frame for all of time.

Today, I learn about forgiveness and bitterness. Today, I strive to feel it for the first time and forgive the one person I struggle the most to forgive:
Myself.