Be Grudgingly

In which our Hero wonders if he can’t leave more of the past behind

Church this week offered a sermon that was topical and engaging, which is embarrassing because it comes as a bit of a surprise. Usually I spend the sermon letting the words wash over me as I meditate on my own thing. Even after the topic cutting so close to home, I’m finding myself mocking the actual outcome, a procedural approach that I haven’t bothered to actually read. But the conversation was about forgiveness. About the importance of forgiveness, the need for it, and the difficulty of it.

I’ve been reflecting on the difficulty of forgiveness anyway. Some “Tenth Anniversary of…” article made me reflect on other ten-years-agos. Ten years ago, I was commuting across the continent. Ten years ago, I was 30, and felt pretty different about the world. Ten years ago I was in the middle of the good parts of my relationship with the Ex.

As I thought about how things played out, I could feel the simultaneous slight curiosity about how things have turned out for her under the weight of all the emotion left-over in the wake of things ending. And I’m okay with the curiosity, but I’m feeling disappointed that I’m still angry about how things ended. To the point that I still wish her mild inconvenience. No injuries or grave misfortune, just really annoying stuff like cat hair in every meal and having to circle a lot before finding parking.

I’m not held back by angst, like the person in the priest’s example (who he named, told an intimate life story about, and then said “Well, I don’t know, I was just told it was a person, but I *think* it was [name]”). I’m not struggling with grief or anger. Not even nostalgia, which seems to fix on my fish tank rather than on the ex.

I want to be able to think of the past without making a face or thinking a rude word, even if it makes me laugh. So I was thinking about that, and how to get there, and “What my desired outcome” is. Like, if she showed up with the money she owed me, would I be at peace about things? Not really, no. She’d earn a little respect for honouring her word, but that wouldn’t make me feel different, and it wouldn’t bring her to a positive balance on that count either.

So what do I want? Well, as long as I’m dreaming up fairy stories, I’d like to get an apology that was sincere, an honest explanation and if I’m dreaming big, lets see the money she owed me get donated to a cause I like. Or even just admit that she’s not going to repay me. But none of those things are going to give me any more closure than I’ve got now. The ugliness of how things ended left me to resolve things myself, and I think I’ve done that.

But if there’s nothing I need from her, and yet there’s still emotion, then what’s left is something in me. Which really annoys me. I’m okay with the feeling of distaste, but I don’t want the tension. I want to be able to think of her with the same warmth and joie-de-vivre that I have for telemarketers who interrupt my dinner.

Which is where the sermon resonated. Maybe some of healing myself of old wounds is forgiving the person who caused them as a way of letting go of the hurts themselves. It doesn’t matter anymore, and even if it did, my life is better for her absence. So I wish we’d both done better. I wish the ending had been a little more worthy of the affection we claimed for each other. I forgive her for whatever the ending was. I forgive her for breaking my heart if that’s all it was. And I forgive her for using me if that was there too.

Hard to say that without wanting to be funny, or to use sharp words. I’d indulge, but I suspect that the value of the statement goes away if I do.

It’s been six years now, very nearly. I don’t think about the ex very often, and most of the time even if she passes through a story, I don’t think about her much. But sometimes I do think back, and however justified I feel, I wish I wasn’t angry. She isn’t worth that much of my care.