I sometimes feel entitled to my own emotions — anger, sadness, frustration. There are some days when I don’t want to take the higher road and just let something go like it was nothing, days when the “Jesus answer” simply isn’t enough. Times when I want to actually express how I feel, when it gets too much for me and I feel like I can’t just let God take it away.
But other people have to suffer for that, and in that way, I feel cursed.
I was raised in a family where apologies weren’t enough. It wasn’t enough to give one, and it wasn’t enough to receive one. I don’t think I’ve ever heard any of my family members, including myself, apologize to each other for something deeply hurtful, like yelling or threatening or striking each other. We’ve always chosen the low road, letting things smooth over in a way that doesn’t allow us to forget how we’ve wronged each other, only push it to the back of our minds so that some day they can boil over again.
I’ve never really learned to apologize. I do my best to, but even then, I’m not very good at it, whatever that means. Then again, only once in my life have I received an apology for something deeply hurtful where the person understood why I was hurt, and that took almost two years to get around to. And I almost leapt up for a victory lap on that one.
But it’s not a victory. Everytime we apologize or receive an apology, everytime we admit that we were wrong, it’s like straightening out a painting on a wall. Something went wrong, and you can only do your best to put it as close to what it was before as possible. But sometimes, while straightening out that painting, you realize that the spot on the wall where the painting is at isn’t even the right one for it.
Turn it inwards, I used to think. I thought that if I forced those negative feelings onto myself, it’d be like paying back the way that I’d hurt a friend. But it’s too easy to become angry with myself, to envelope myself in hatred and bring myself down as far as possible. And nobody wins that way. Nobody. Only more hurt can result from it, and in that way, I’ve been wrong for a solid portion of my life.
But sometimes explaining why things are the way they are isn’t enough. Sometimes you have to create a reason why things don’t have to be the way they are to make things right.
My reason?
“Men dream, aspire, and through indomitable force of will achieve the impossible.”
Because I love my friends, and more than that, I love people; part of that is learning how to forgive and be forgiven.
And maybe I still don’t know how to bring out of my mouth what I feel in my heart, but I do mean it. And I am sorry.
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