Forgiveness - Two Sentence Tuesday ---

Last week I took a quote from the book A Child Called "It". This week I wanted to take a quote from a book by Robin Casarjian called Forgiveness: A Bold Choice For A Peaceful Heart. Sadly I can not find my copy of the book because my house is in limbo and my 4 bookcases are still sitting in my dining/living room and kitchen and the books are all stacked in boxes or on the dining room table so to find it would take a monumental feat which I do not think I could accomplish this late in the game.

I will say that what stuck with me from that book was the statement that forgiving one for their past deeds against you is not saying you condone or excuse the behavior that caused you physical or emotional harm. What it does is release the emotions that are stuck inside you. It helps you move passed that and helps you to grow and move forward.

When I first read the book I was angry, beligerent, and did not want to believe a damn thing in the book. My soul was so blackened from childhood abuse, a rape at 18, and abuse in my relationship (early) with Mr. that there was NO WAY I was forgiving any of those bastards for the mark they put on me. I was NOT going to ever forget what they did because to forget is to allow it to happen again. For *years* I carried this mentality around with me and for weeks after reading that book I'd walk around muttering about how STUPID that BITCH that wrote that book was who was SHE to tell ME that I had to FORGIVE for my heart to be at peace. I didn't need PEACE and didn't WANT it! What I wanted was REVENGE.

With that mentality my life went in to a tailspin and I found myself in group therapy after causing an injury to Mr. so bad that he required stitches and my children were witness to it. The first few weeks I was a bitch on wheels and let everyone in that group know that *I* wasn't the fucked up one - they were. One lady, a schizophrenic, touched me on my arm and said "Do you know you have a halo around your head?" I laughed in her face and said "That halo is dented and rusted and being held on by horns." She was hurt by my comments. One man came in and whined about his wife and wanted her back and the next week he called her a bitch and said he was gay. I told him "Dude, decide that the fuck you're gonna do. Are you gonna ride the horse or fuck it? You're making me dizzy." I continued on with my abusive verbage until the therapist said "SHUT UP!" Just like that. And I did. He was mad. His face was red and I think I might have even saw steam coming from his ears. He was shocked at my reaction as much as I was at his. I could see the color leaving his face and him noticing the look on my face. The fear. The certaintly that he would either hit me or verbally abuse me.

From that day forward I took little steps, sometimes stumbled, sometimes crawled, but found my way to a somewhat, if not totally, peaceful heart. I learned never to make idle threats if I have no intention of following through. I learned that *I* am responsible for my happiness and no one else is. I learned that Mr. wasn't going to change because I demanded it but I certainly didn't have to put up with his drinking and abuse either. And the most important thing I learned? How to say one word: No. To Mr., his family, my family, and anyone else that was trying to suck the life out of me. No. No, I don't want to watch your kids. No, you can't treat me like shit.

That is when my relationship with my family ('rents and sibs) changed tremendously and I started being written off as "crazy" because I wouldn't let them talk shit to me or about me or treat my kids like the "bastards" of the neighborhood. I took that welcome mat off my back, stood up, straightened my spine, and said "No."

As for Mr.? We had a long, long talk and I basically told him he needed to decide if he wanted to be a sober husband and father or a single alcoholic because the two weren't going to mix. He chose the former and not the latter and we spent months in therapy together to help heal ourselves and spent YEARS in family therapy trying to heal our family. Are we healed? No. It's a work in progress and our love for our children (and now each other) keeps us plugging away at it. It keeps us more grounded and we've learned to argue without being abusive. We've learned to fight w/out fists. But more than anything? We've learned to love ourselves first so that we can love and accept others.

Today when someone does something that really hurts me (and it has happened a lot) I just walk away saying "I forgive you." And I mean it. I do forgive them. But I will not forget their deeds and they've lost my trust and respect.

Please don't think I'm trying to be preachy or anything because that is not what I'm doing. I just know that this book I'm talking about opened so many doors to me and helped me move through my life in a way that is more positive than negative and it's nice not having shoe - tread marks on my back anymore. I love that I am a stronger personality, I love that I can tell someone to back off, and I love that I can take their power and drop it so that I don't continue to dwell on it and let it anger me or stress me. Life is too short for that.

That being said...I still can't stand my mother.

Now, for two lines from my own work. Well...this kind of goes along the same lines as forgiveness. My friend, Lucinda, is deathly allergic to bee stings. She tries to avoid them like nobody's business but she called me one day to tell me a story about how her youngest son let a kitten out and it was on the other side of their fence and he was distraught over it and needed his mommy to rescue it. She then stepped on some (North Carolina) hornet's nest and they attacked. She was so MAD that those "bastards" dared to chase her in to her home and that she had to drive herself to urgent care for epinephrine so she didn't die.

I told her she needed to look at it from the bees' point of view and how scared they were when this HUGE (Yeah, she's barely 5' and weighs 100# on a good month) human darkened their nest and scared them. It was natural what they did and she should not blame them. But, she was having none of it. Oh no. So what did I do? I wrote a story that takes it from those poor little critter's point of view. This is three sentences taken from their story:

Lizzy's heart went cold at the thought of stinging a child. Tears welled up into her eyes and the thought in her mind was that if the child was allergic it would kill him. She knew what it was like to lose a child.

This is one of my favorite pieces and I really had fun writing it even if it did give Lucinda big ol' nightmares. She even told me that she thought she heard them still buzzing in her house. See, they were attacking and she stripped her shirt off outside while trying to get her son and the wayward kitty in to the house. They were in there. She sprayed them but she was pretty sure she still heard buzzing. Now I tried to keep a straight face when she told me (not that she could tell because it was over the phone) and I tried to sound "concerned" but I couldn't. I laughed so hard I almost wet myself. The thought of this dimunitive woman running from a swarm of hornets (who was only trying to protect their home) and being so scared she stripped her shirt off outside, in broad daylight, was my undoing. I laughed and laughed and then laughed some more and then after the call went right to my keyboard and wrote "Lizzy".

Just a note: I found out *after* all this happened and I knew she was okay so I felt free to giggle at the vision.

Thanks goes out to Women of Mystery who began this exercise.