The pain of forgiveness

What is the truth of forgiveness?

I do not believe in forgive and forget.

If you forget what you have forgiven, does that not diminish the forgiveness?

If you forget what you have forgiven, how can you take meaning from what happened? How can you protect yourself in the future?

Forgiveness means scars. It means accepting those scars, that they are there. That there was pain in their acquisition. Pain that changes what was there before.

Sometimes the scars are obvious and ugly. Blistered and twisted like a burn on the soul.

Sometimes the scars are legion, making their wearers unrecognizable. Only a shadow of what could've been hidden behind hash marks of pain.

Sometimes the scars are deep and hidden away. These are mine. Stowed away in the darkest night of my soul.

With the years of childhood I don't remember. With the feelings of helplessness. The sadness. The betrayal. With the mask I wore to hide the real from everyone around me. Because those things doesn't happen in good families.

Sometimes the wind of memory blows the curtain aside and the scars are exposed. I want to look away as disgust crawls over my skin like a swarm of insects scurrying from the disturbance. The ghosts of the past steal my breath. Cloud my mind. Bind my feet. My soul screams for it to stop. As my mouth remains silent. As it always did. Ashamed. Confused.

Then I pull the curtain closed. I take my mind somewhere safe and quiet. There is no need to revisit them more often than necessary. Those scars will live with me forever.

I keep them safely tucked away. Hidden from prying eyes. In the cold. In the dark. In a place where scars should never be. I keep them in the same way they were made.

I acknowledge them. The one who gave them to me. And I know that I am who I am because of those scars. Because of that pain.

The value of that strength? Has outweighed the anger from the pain.

For me, this is forgiveness.

WTH happened to Ms. WTH??

So my apologies for being gone for a while. This seems to happen to me from time to time. Perhaps it is some kind of mood cycle or lunar cycle or just when all the shit in life finally catches up with me.

I've been squashed under pregnancy exhaustion, lots of work, a birthday party, some unexpected family drama, and pregnancy exhaustion.

Have I mentioned that I'm really tired? I am a black hole for sleep. Not sure I mentioned that.

Sometimes? Something just has to give. And I'd rather not write at all than to dump a boring and/or stinky pile. Although this blog is primarily a cathartic exercise, I am trying to develop my catharsis into more of a "craft" as opposed to haphazard emotional venting.

So Yeah.

There it is.*

*50 "holy crap" points goes to anyone who can identify this movie quote.

I will not sink

I stared at those two lines for a long time. Watching as they began to wobble and blur with the trembling of my hand and the welling of my tears.

The meaning of those parallel little pink lines washed over me like a flood.

My life was going to change in a way I had all but decided I never wanted. I was no longer walking the road I thought I was. The landscape was not what I thought it was.

The nights of numbing escape from my past? The nights of drinking with that handsome coworker? Had yielded unexpected consequences.

As I sat there, stomach knotted with fear, reality began to warp in my mind. My perspective began to bend and twist in response to this new information.

Decisions began to take shape before I consciously realized they needed to be made.

The creepy stalker ex? Twisted into more than an annoyance. Now, he was a threat to my family.

The blurry carefree nights of stress numbing? Melted into a dangerous health hazard.

My 1-bedroom apartment suddenly shrunk and filled itself with pointy, toxic choking hazards.

My income was now squeezed into inadequacy, failing to stretch itself to the new boundaries soon to be required of it.

A list began to materialize in my mind. My doctor must be called. Prenatal vitamins must be purchased. The handsome coworker must be informed. The income must be stretched, expanded, or perhaps even supplemented. The stalker must be eradicated.

I knew there were other things, but I allowed those to remain fuzzy at the outside edges of my thoughts.

This whole baby thing? Was completely alien to me. I was an only child with no experience with children. There was so much I didn't know. The immensity of it all threatened to suffocate me with its weight.

As it happens so often in my life, I had been shoved into the deep end. Without warning and without the knowledge I needed to swim.

But as it happens so often in my life, I would refuse to sink. There might be splashing, flailing, coughing, and spitting. It might be ugly at times. But I would not sink.

Even as I watched those lines tremble, I knew I would not sink.




Assignment: When meeting someone for the first time, describing a scene from your life that would help show the person your true self.

Dating a pregnant chick

When I met the man who would eventually become my husband, I was in an unusual state of mind.

For most of my post-pubescent life, I have been, perhaps, a bit boy-crazy. Once I figured out what they were for, I wanted one of my own.

I just had a hell of a time trying to find one that I wanted to keep.

There was the white trash reject, the we-should've-just-stayed-friends guy, the spineless emo guy (complete with tiny junk), the completely unmotivated pothead (with a very hot roommate...coulda, shoulda, woulda...*sigh*), the astonishingly-immature-even-tho-he-was-way-older stalker, the drunk, etc.

The drunk knocked me up and left the state upon learning of said knock uppage. Real sweetheart, huh?

By this point, I was 26, had been a serial monogamist for 10+ years and completely done trying to date. I had a kid coming that I had to consider & really, it was just easier to be on my own.

I met Hub when I was 6 months pregnant and still very determinedly not interested in dating. I was working 2 jobs & was still feeling the sting of being knocked up & left.

Fuck men.

Figuratively speaking.

Hub had previously been with his baby mama who really didn't want to do anything on her own. She preferred to "contract out" any work that might need to be done with a "service exchange" program. With pretty much anyone who might be willing to exchange services.

Ahem.

Ew.

Hub meets me and is all enamored of my "can do" attitude (i.e. the "fuck everyone I'm going to take care of this shit myself" attitude). He was amazed at how hard I was working to make things happen.

I told him we would not date. I had no desire to date. None. Plus? I was gigantically pregnant. No. Dating.

So about a month later we were dating.

Ahem.

He had told his family (on the other side of the country) that he was dating a woman with a kid. Which was true. He just omitted the fact that the kid? Was still IN the woman he was dating.

Details.

I didn't know this until right before I delivered. I was suitably frowny and told him he'd have to own up. If he didn't? It would bite him in the ass later. He agreed.

On the day I delivered Boo, he called his family to tell them the news. Here's how that went:

Ring....Ring.....Ring...

"Hi, Mom? I'm Ok. I just wanted to let you know that I'm in the hospital right now."

POP (this is the sound of my eyeballs flying out of my head)

"What? No, I'm fine. It's the girl I'm seeing"

Me: facepalm

"Um...you know how I said she had a kid? Well, actually, she just had him. No, just now. Yeah, sorry about that."

If my son ever makes a phone call like that to me? I think I will implode. Just saying...

Tell me what you love about your daughters!

Because I know how my life works, I am deeply suspicious (read: confident) that this baby that I'm growing (and here I go assuming that it's only one. HA!) will be a girl.

If you have read more than just this post, you'll know that I've had a tough time with my stepdaughter, Princess. She has not been a great representative for all girlkind.

I used to be a girl, and I remember being fabulous. Well-behaved, intelligent, and witty. The perfect child.

I imagine my parents - my mother in particular - did not share my viewpoint of perfection.

Ahem.

We may or may not be hoping for a boy.

Ahem.

However, I know my life. And if I were a betting [wo]man, I'd put my money on girl. I so would. I am that sure.

I would like to keep the wailing and gnashing of teeth to a minimum in that 16 week ultrasound appointment, tho. I don't want to get that look from the ultrasound tech. I want to be able to plausibly pull off the "yay! it's a girl!" reaction.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not hating on girls. I'm really not. So many people talk about how much they love their girls and how they couldn't imagine having boys. I want to hear about all those things that y'all love about the girls.

What I love about my boy? The rationality. The logical thinking. The general lack of drama. The general good-nature. That everything is not a tragedy. The love of science & figuring stuff out. The fact that he is Boo no matter the circumstances - he does not put on a big fake show for people & then turn into Satan when those people leave. He will equally be Satan whether those people are there or not.

I am not a girly girl. I kinda hate pink. I think princesses suck, on the whole. Not that it stops me from watching their movies on occasion, but they still suck. With their lack of substance, personality, and low standards in men. I mean, prince is all they look for & if he's a idiot or douchebag...eh, whatever. They just sit around & wait for him to rescue them. Who wants to wait around to be rescued? I'll bail my own ass out thank you. And I have yet to meet a prince charging in on a white steed to make all my dreams come true. Pfft.

I digress.

I get along better with boys. Let's take this thing apart. How does it work? Let's talk logic & figure stuff out! Let's talk about ideas! Bring me some Tonka trucks so we can dig around in the back yard! Oooh, but watch out for the little brown logs back there...

I just can't deal with constant travesty. It makes me stabby. Life is always going to suck in some capacity (at least until Princey shows up) so get over it already.

Parents of girls? Throw me a bone here. What makes them so cool? What do I have to look forward to in a daughter? Other than the fact that I will have more than 1 dusty rack in the corner from which to choose her clothes.