The Unforgiven...

[Harke the Boeotarch]

Do you have people whom you can't seem to forgive in your life?

With me they are mostly people you don't matter much to me at all... but somehow I wallow in these bad memories and get aggressive. Mods in forums, traffic disputes, lousy politicians.

No one was that awful to me in my life that they deserve to be killed in nasty ways. But I think about those things every few days. Even when it was twenty years ago.

I'm not sure if I'm even serious most of the time.

 

[NotHardUp1]

Yes. Although I do not say "can't," but like everyone, "won't" would be more apt.

I can't think of anyone outside my family.

A brother and a nephew have both ventured beyond the boundary of amity and comity for reasons I won't go into. To be clear, I don't think it a matter of forgiveness, per se, but of relation. They have proven to be men whom I would not associate, and by effect, am no longer bound by filial duty or love. There is no hatred for them, but they are cut off, dead to me.

 

[Rickrock]

I can't think of anyone in my life that I would not forgive except some people I have read about on the news, but no one that I know personally.

 

[LeicsDom]

Yes, quite a few
If someone stabs me in the back then they are dead to me

 

[rareboy]

There are several.

 

[Vannie]

I look at it as if someone physically died. I mourn their loss a bit and move on.

 

[PipRosi]

Yep. My sire (sperminator, I dunno what to call him) called and left a message again, a 'happy july 4th'. He's super eager to talk to me now that I won't talk to him. Narcissistic soul sucker.

 

[PipRosi]

Oh, I should add that even though the real man refuses to ever grow or heal, the him in my head is evolving in interesting ways... how he shows up in my dreams.

 

[rareboy]

I would note that in our family, there was a saying by those connected with it that you should never cross us because it is seven years to forgiveness.

That was being optimistic.

 

[PipRosi]

I would note that in our family, there was a saying by those connected with it that you should never cross us because it is seven years to forgiveness.

That was being optimistic.

If you're Greek, seven centuries is optimistic, right?

 

[rareboy]

I am happy with the indigenous people's timeframe for everything....seven generations.

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

Don't understand why this is important. Blaming them for somehow being in the way of achieving what I wanted. But ultimately they were not. But I didn't get there anyway.

 

[peeonme]

Do you have people whom you can't seem to forgive in your life?

With me they are mostly people you don't matter much to me at all... but somehow I wallow in these bad memories and get aggressive. Mods in forums, traffic disputes, lousy politicians.

No one was that awful to me in my life that they deserve to be killed in nasty ways. But I think about those things every few days. Even when it was twenty years ago.

I'm not sure if I'm even serious most of the time.

None of us were afforded the convenience of an "erase" button for our brains. We confuse forgive with forget. If a person has wronged us and caused us great pain we can exhibit forgiveness toward them simply by not seeking any sort of revenge. If they sincerely acknowledge their responsibility I find it's far easier to let it go. Hell, we are all assholes at times, aren't we? It's the people who wound us and never even say "sorry" that I find hardest to forgive not that I dwell on what they have done... but when others act in the same fashion it seems to trigger old injuries.

Speaking anecdotally my mother was a fat, demanding person that thought that she was worthy of praise just for carrying for me 9 months. Now I have found that more than one of my customers act in the same fashion. They trigger memories that I wish I could erase. I got a text from one tonight, that gave me a headache and I self medicated with a cold beer.

I suppose that staying clear of toxic people who might remind us of toxic people from the past might be an answer... but that's not very easy. Go easy on yourself... self forgiveness for not being able to forgive could help.

 

[ShadowCat]

Yes and unfortunately most are family! One is my dad in particular. Pm me i might share details, depends on who asks!

 

[NotHardUp1]

Don't understand why this is important. Blaming them for somehow being in the way of achieving what I wanted. But ultimately they were not. But I didn't get there anyway.

You must do you, but I don't understand your depiction of your life as if your opportunities were a past option. You're not old. Even if you were, that doesn't preclude future, unless your ambition was to become a young phenom porn star.

I return to the example of my grandmother. She reincarnated herself at age 60, and led quite a remarkably different life in her long widowhood. In brief, she had married young, around 20, after having taught school for three years or so. She had to quit her career because it was the policy of the school system to not allowed married women to teach. So, she left a routine of planning lessons for 8 grade levels, and teaching, and teaching piano, to simply become a housewife, which she very much found limiting.

She had a child a year later, and spent the next 30 years being a parent to children born 14 years apart, all the while knowing her husband was having affairs on the road in his job travels. As was common in her generation, she remained loyal to him in spite of it all, but he suffered a massive heart attack in his late 50's and struggled along until he died of a stroke at age 64, leaving her penniless, with only a broken down house and not even enough savings to pay for the funeral.

But, when his health began failing, my grandmother rolled up her sleeves and went to work full time, first in a plant nursery, then as a theater concessionist. She immediately saw that it was not enough and began commuting with friends to a university almost an hour away, and continued for five years, taking a business degree. She was then 65, limited in a small town for options, but still found work in county government and city government, working as a clerk for almost two decades more. She was tired, but she was also invigorated by working and interacting, and even continued to take local university courses in her "spare" time. She took a computer science degree in 1983 as a 73 year-old woman, very rare.

She even enrolled in a night MBA program and began a local study of day care business models, until she had to drop the course when she fell and broke an ankle. She was fired from her job as night clerk at a motel, too, for the injury.

So, I don't know what your dream was to achieve, but why does it have to be over? What is there that you cannot pursue as a man who is in his middle years?

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

So, I don't know what your dream was to achieve, but why does it have to be over? What is there that you cannot pursue as a man who is in his middle years?

It takes a very long time to become an architect. Most of us don´t make it, and those that do start young.

 

[smokeshadow]

^^When I graduated from college with a Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1978, it had taken me 5 years plus one Summer school to complete the 180 hours required for the degree. That 180 hours is 18 hours a semester (considered a full load). Once one has their degree, they are required by state law to work under a registered architect for a minimum of 3 years before becoming eligible to sit for the Architects Licensing Exam (an 8 hour a day, 3 day multiple choice exam plus 1 day design problem). There were 8 sections to the exam (site design, structural design, mechanical & electrical design, plumbing design, interior design, accessibility and life safety), not including the design problem. Took me 8 tries to finally pass all sections. Confounding structural design almost did me in Fortunately for me and my contemporaries, once one section had been passed with a 75 out of 100, one did not have to re-take that section. Only re-taking the sections not passed. I kept making 72 or 74 or 73 or 71 on that structural section until I finally got it right The design problem section, where the candidate is given an actual building to design and draft construction drawings, took me 2 attempts to pass

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

^ Spent too much work and time for nothing in 2003 - 2008. My life went in a completely different direction after that... also nothing that has a career for me... but then you know that´s what almost always happens when you go into the arts. I wouldn´t have wanted to miss it for the world!

I don´t want to work for about half the people in my university. It was quite horrific.

With a little luck I´ll be paying off most of my student debt this year.

I´m just upset I spent 20 years of my life in school, and have nothing to show for it. And I mean nothing.

But even that doesn´t phase me much, except... at 44 time is running out.

 

[PipRosi]

Do you have people whom you can't seem to forgive in your life?

With me they are mostly people you don't matter much to me at all... but somehow I wallow in these bad memories and get aggressive. Mods in forums, traffic disputes, lousy politicians.

No one was that awful to me in my life that they deserve to be killed in nasty ways. But I think about those things every few days. Even when it was twenty years ago.

I'm not sure if I'm even serious most of the time.

I meant to say to this, though, that you only hurt yourself by holding onto anger.

 

[PipRosi]

No, I meant to say you really hurt yourself holding onto anger, not "only" Shouldn't have had that glass of wine.