Venom

Sometimes you carry things with you for a long time. You don't mean to, you just do. You mean to just let it all go - let the past be the past and move on.

Then you try to go to sleep at night - and things creep in. They enter your mind and you try to forget - sometimes successfully, sometimes not so much. Eventually, those things that slip through your lax night filter take residence in your mind, body and soul. They start to become a part of who you are. Slowly, something inside of you begins to rot. No matter how much work you put into other areas, that rotten spot starts to spread. A bad apple, a definite spiritual damper.

Sometimes it's not only at night but at other times too... when you're driving alone... when you're washing dishes... when your walking down the hall at work. Some memories just do not stay buried. You can't help it and that's ok. It's your mind/spirit/soul trying to alert you to something. Something that's amiss inside of you. Something that needs to dissolve in the light. First, though, you MUST bring it out of the dark. This task requires not only speaking of it to those who are willing to listen but also figuring out what you can't figure out about it. Why did that happen to me? What is so wrong with me that the behavior of another party toward me was ok with them (let alone - me)? Why have I grown mean - and callous - and hard inside? Are the two connected? They have got to be.

And eventually you begin to see - they are.

If I can laugh about it while remembering it - I know I'm over it. I'll never forget per say but I can let it go. Some things were just SO stupid of other people that you are not scarred... you are just stuck in eye rolling mode... you tell other people certain things and you just end up laughing. Still - there are those other memories - the ones where you don't laugh. They are the ones doing you harm.

There was a time - a very long time - when I was less critical than I am now. Much less critical. Then stuff happens and you find yourself growing a much deeper resentment toward not only those who hurt you but anyone who reminds you of those who hurt you. For me, I find myself picking apart men - sometimes in a very cruel way - looking at their flaws and deciding on that basis that not only was I not into them (as if simple rejection is not enough)... I would choose to hate them as well. I would find the little things and pick at that like a scab. Not so much to them but in my heart. Some things are funny, yes. And there is nothing to say that the story won't make me chuckle with my girls but there is no reason that I need to find every reason in the book to dislike them. Unless that's the only way I know how to deal with inflicting the same pain that has been inflicted on me.

Is it exactly the same? No. Not in most ways, really. But - in some ways - sadly, yes. Am I purposefully inflicting pain when I reject? No. I do feel bad - most of the time (there are always exceptions). Will I string them along and drag it out and keep an eye on them and use them for all I can get? No. It's not worth the free dinner. Will I use them just to know I have a backup plan? Hell, no. They deserve better, I deserve better.

Still... there's something to be said for my scab-picking. There's something to be said for the fact that I cannot just let it go at the pure simplicity that I am not digging them because they eat their peas a little funny. (One at a time, really?) I need to justify my rejection and turn it around on them. At least internally.

Will I laugh about the peas? Yes. Probably. Will I laugh about other things to? Yes, I will. But do I need to turn that annoyance into actual hate? No, I do not. Can I maybe start to see the good things too? And learn to mention those along with the peas? Sure. I can try. Because there is no reason I need to turn my venom around on those who haven't hurt me in order to get back at the ones who have.

Working toward forgiveness is a process. Recognizing my own behaviors and how they are related to my feelings helps me to understand maybe a little of where the offender came from. I'll never understand all of it but maybe - in the long run there was nothing inherently wrong with me - maybe all the pain inflicted was solely based on them fighting what they could not see.