FORGIVENNESS
IT'S A STORAGE PROBLEM.
I forgive you. I don’t care if you deserve it. I’m forgiving you for me, not you.
I’m tired of carrying the weight. It’s heavy. The grudge weighs on me. I know it’s selfish, but I have no time left for worrying about people who don’t know me, who don’t know anyone, possibly even themselves. It’s a delusion. I know this. It turns out that I am human too. Shocking, I know. I thought I was different. To be human is to waste the limited time you have on Madam Gaia. You are too close to your life by definition. A global view of a personal life is a rarity. Having a dispassionate view of your own life is not impossible, but it is rare. Our innate capacity for imagination (delusion) is programmed in. We live on myths. Why do you think we wake up every day.
The human head, the complex bundle of wants, needs, memories, needs input. If it lacks input, it invents it. When I first moved to Boise Idaho, at 29 years old, to start again in a new town, I knew very few people. That includes my wife, Ms.R, who I didn’t really know at all. What I did know is, that we had a child baking, and if I wanted to to be more than a sperm donor, I would move to Boise. I was all in as far as Ms.R was concerned, who I fell for on 10 March, 1989. I know the date because I wrote a song about the night before. She very rightly identified me with this question: “I either hate this man, or I’m going to marry him.” Turns out, you can do both.
I was quickly confronted with the knowledge that “LOVE,” that furtive condition that binds/bonds two people together was a very small part of the equation. It’s the story that brings two people into a relationship, and keeps it going through the hard times that inevitably accompany this thing we call “LIFE.” Forever is a mighty long time, and most people don’t think about it when their blood is up. But I was looking for this my whole life, and led me to this place. It was total unconscious brain thinking. The nuts and bolts of a business relationship, a legal partnership, which is at the basis of the word marriage1 and is not what you are thinking about when the brainstem and amygdala start collaborating.
It really ruined my life as a casual sex participant. I really sucked at it. I fell in and out of “love” in an instant. But that is another story I need to forgive myself for.
PUT THE LOAD RIGHT ON ME
I think my flexible2 memory gives me an advantage when it comes to forgiveness. I don’t hold on to grudges. The past transgressions fade the farther I get away from them. It’s not like I don’t care. I do. I believe in you. If I like what you are doing, I will tell you. Sometimes, I was mistaken. That’s on me, and I apologize. But I don’t think I am so important that it means something. I believed more in you than I did in myself. At times. That was my mistake. It speaks to my self doubt, an imposter syndrome from someone who didn’t believe he was even somewhere, belonging or not. I was focused on where I was supposed to go, without any understanding about how to get there. I could focus on the missed opportunities, on the mistakes I made. There were many. They are mine. I forgive myself for them. Things took the course they took. Choices were made. I made them. I shoulda/coulda/woulda. Who cares? I’m still figuring that out.
I like to travel, but I don’t like to tour. Spending a few seconds in a lot of places is not my thing. I like to be there, wherever there is. I like the experience, but I like being a visitor. I know that just because I’m from somewhere, I’m not from there. Being in the van is something I had a hard time adjusting to. That’s not to say that I couldn’t have done it. I loved playing out of town. I loved traveling for business. I just never invested the time it took to establish the circuit. So I made excuses. And waffled. Had to pay the rent. Scared of the risk. And there you go.
(17:3) “If your brother offends you, correct him. If he changes, forgive him. (4) Even if he offends you seven times a day, then forgive him seven times.- Gospel of Q
The weight you carry is not yours. Don’t assume responsibility for creations that are not yours. What they believe is their burden, not yours. You are foolish to believe them. What bothers you is the beam of blindness, preventing you from seeing the truth and light. The seed of truth that they don’t know, and can’t believe, because they are poisoned. The world we consume is toxic. It devours us. We are filled with a noxious spirit, and it burns the words into the sky. We carelessly lay waste to things that no longer serve us, instead of letting them be.
Forgive them. That will be your reward.
“The definition of the word marriage—or, more accurately, the understanding of what the institution of marriage properly consists of—continues to be highly controversial. This is not an issue to be resolved by dictionaries. “ https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/marriage
A kind of way of saying messy and disorganized.