Forgiving me.

I woke up out of an angry dream last night to a couple hours of insomnia which gave me ample thinking time in the middle of the night that I probably didn’t need. I’ve been struggling lately with the concept of “sucking it up” and making things right with a friend of mine – particularly because I don’t feel it’s my responsibility to extend the effort at this point. The worst part is that it’s over something relatively insignificant – half misunderstanding and half misinterpretation. Not resolving it is more stressful than just making the phone call. I know.

This past year has been one in which I have meditated an awful lot on forgiveness, having experienced both sides of anger and hurt as a result of my continuing support for Darren, Chelsea and others in the Operation Backfire case. Through that process I have seen the difference between those who have found forgiveness and those who have not. And I worry all the more for those who haven’t, their anger projected outside of them seems untenable to live with on top of the facts of prison, betrayal, and state violence. As much as I wanted to believe otherwise two years ago, this situation was unchangeable from the very beginning and no amount of hating the self-righteous or the “snitches” makes any of it easier to bear. The opposite in fact. This outrage steals daydreams and turns them into revenge fantasies, gives an excuse to build fences between oneself and the world. Fuckers. Got to keep them out.

Early in 2007, I was sexually assaulted by someone who had been a friend to me for a long time – the fact that a friend had done it being more of an affront than the act itself. I never wrote about it here because it took me awhile to figure out and decide how to move with it – I didn’t even tell anyone at first because I didn’t want anyone making a big deal out of it before I had a chance to find that answer for myself. About three months after it happened, I started to write about it privately, and somewhere in there I realized that the only choice I had was to forgive the act and then walk away. To call the person to community accountability would mean that I would forever have my hurt and his bound up together in public space for others to look at, but to nurture my anger privately would result only in lessening myself and do nothing to counter the act.

In July I wrote him a letter outlining my perception of what he had done, how it had made me feel, and finished with my resolution to forgive him rather than holding onto it. I was clear my forgiveness did not restore our friendship, but that I had made a decision about clearing and was done thinking about it. And while some might question the sincerity of this, I can honestly say that when I sent the email I felt free of even my own self-doubt and am as sure now about that course of action as I was in the moment.

Does it make it all better? Well, no. Of course not. Simply forgiving doesn’t change the circumstance of violence, entrapment, loss or injury. These things are still present in both of the scenarios I describe above. Forgiveness is a symbolic and psychological act more than a physical one after all. But it does indicate a willingness to set one’s focus up and ahead rather than down and behind. That is – looking forward and for good instead of convinced that the past is the present and a dark one at that!

Like anything – generosity, gratitude, selflessness – learning to forgive requires regular practice – we don’t exactly live in a society that vaunts these values (being forgiving somehow being equated with being a pushover). But although it may be slightly easier each time, I still find it a struggle to let go in the moments when I am most acutely hurt. This seems to have nothing to do with the severity of the event itself but some other combined set of circumstances that I haven’t quite unravelled yet. Which oddly makes it easier to forgive a man who violated me physically than one who has simply wounded my self-perception. A chip at the ego, and I can’t bring myself to pick up the phone and clear the air between us.

Of course now that I’ve written it here, you know I have to.