To forgive is divine … maybe
I have been thinking about forgiveness.
In part because we just passed International Forgiveness Day (did you know that even existed, or is that an “Only in Marin” kinda thing?) and because of a posting by Big Little Wolf’s Daily Plate of Crazy that elicited some comments (including by yours truly).
You can read it for yourself (and you should), but I was taken by something Big Little Wolf (whom I respect a lot) said:
“forgiveness is possible if you’re talking about someone who is dead, or long gone, or who ceases to threaten or hurt. When you find yourself still in the heat of it after years, it isn’t about forgiveness. It’s about protecting your children from the source of the ongoing manipulation and harmful acts. It’s about survival. These aren’t past actions we’re talking about. This is the present for some of us. A present that lasts for many years, and with no end in sight.”
When I brought up the concept of forgiveness, Mindy Single Mom added this:
“being told things along the lines of “forgiveness will set you free” seems condescending. … Forgiving and thinking positive is not a solution under these circumstances but finding a way to end it would be, and that starts by discussing it and gaining some understanding of the problem.”
Sure; a 
lot of people have a lot of things much worse than I have — or have ever had — in my life. And, yes, speaking the truth — and fighting for it — is essential.
Focusing just on forgiveness, I wonder if that is so, that we can only forgive someone who
harms us if the harming is in the past, not a constant present. And if forgiveness is indeed condescending. I wonder if forgiveness is
one of those situational things; you know, you’re anti-abortion and then your teenaged daughter gets knocked up by a rapist,
you’re anti-death penalty and then your fiance gets murdered.
I tend to think it’s not.
If you read the stories of some of the “heroes” of International Forgiveness Day,” it does make you pause.
I know what the Bible says about forgiveness, but without getting all religious on you (which I’m not; hey, I’m from NorCal, so I’m “spiritual, not religious”), everything I know about forgiveness is to set the person being hurt free from having to carry the burden of anger against those harming him or her.
What I understand about forgiveness is that:
- Forgiveness doesn’t excuse anyone.
- Forgiveness doesn’t mean we’re ignoring or denying anything.
- Forgiveness doesn’t mean accepting bad behavior as “right.”
- Forgiveness doesn’t mean we’re giving someone a “buy” or that he/she’s “off the hook.”
- Forgiveness doesn’t mean that we can use it as a weapon, hanging bad behavior over someone’s head forever.
No — forgiveness means that we are stop thinking of ourselves as a “victim” (even if things totally suck) and start taking control of our emotions and choosing to start the healing on our own. Because, you know, ain’t no one else who’s going to do it for for us … and no one else can.
Not that this is a reason to feel forgiveness, but nothing pisses someone off more than when you don’t allow yourself to react to his/her bad shit.
If we don’t buy into the hurt that people want to hurl at us, well, what recourse do they have?
Exactly.
The only one who suffers is the one doing the hurting.
And, maybe, that person will find compassion … and stop.
I think of Leonard Cohen’s words:
Like a bird on the wire
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free …
If I, if I have been unkind
I hope that you can just let it go by.
If I, if I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you.
- Is forgiveness only for events that have happened in the past?
- Have you struggled with forgiveness?
- Do you only forgive when someone asks to be forgiven?
- Have you asked for forgiveness, and not gotten it?
Photo © Lars Lachmann — Fotolia.com.
Are singles happy?
“What a beautiful view,” Sara said as we sat at the Mountain Home Inn soaking in the amazing vista, resting our tired hiking legs. “I just wish I had someone to share it with.”
“Excuse me, Missy, but am I chopped liver? Aren’t we sharing it?”
“You know what I mean; a guy.”
“You’ll find him, sweetie,” I said, trying to sound reassuring even though I know there’s a very real possibility she won’t.
She sighed. “I’m just so tired of being single.” 
Ah, yes, “being single” — the condition in which many married people wish they were, and in which many single people wish they weren’t.
Which is kind of odd because so much of what Sara loves about being single is her freedom; me, too. No one to answer to, no one to compromise with, no one who has to nag remind us to leave the toilet seat down or to replace the toothpaste cap.
All the niggling details of being coupled that tear away at intimacy and romance and often leave resentment, bitterness and disappointment in their wake.
If only being single wasn’t so … alone.
Except, I’m perfectly happy being alone.
Does that make me weird?
There’s a perception that being alone means lonely; OK, sometimes they’re one and the same. There are 104 million single people in the United States — there’s just no way to know how many are happily single and how many want to be coupled or “unsingle.” Despite surveys that proclaim how happy singles are, the never-ending stupid “How to be single and happy” Cosmo, eHow and Helium articles would make you think, well, perhaps we’re not all as happy as we say we are.
Regardless, learning to be happy alone is one of the most valuable gifts we can give ourselves. Because only we can create our own happiness, no one else. And, we may end up being single for most if not all of our lives. Then what?
There’s nothing worse than being single and wanting not to be single … except perhaps being not single and wishing you were. Feeling alone in a relationship sucks. So does the desperation of wanting to be coupled so much that we find ourselves in relationships we really shouldn’t be in just so we don’t have to be lonely alone.
Despite the whole Quirky Alone movement (which probably has already gone the way of chia pets and pet rocks) and the writings of such singles advocates as Bella DePaulo, author of Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After, I wonder if most singles feel totally happy and complete being single for the rest of their lives, or if they see it as a temporary situation until someone comes along.
And I wonder if women worry more about being single than men do (or is it that society feels more uncomfortable with single women than single men? She’s the old maid or spinster, he’s the lifelong bachelor — which sounds better?).
Interesting what John DeVore, the Frisky’s Mind of Men columnist says:
Men don’t fear the “single” label. We have our own issues and fears, but they are likewise illusory, socially created scarecrows … Men don’t mind being “single,” because we have mythologies that celebrate the whole notion of being on your own.
True; aren’t most of the heroes of our myths men whose women live in the periphery of their lives — if they even have them, that is? Do women have the same mythologies? I don’t think so, but I think society has many mythologies for us (see old maid/spinster references above, or the rumors swirling around powerful women who aren’t married or mothers, like Elena Kagan).
Look at “Sex and the City’s” Samantha, a single woman who wasn’t all that concerned with being coupled — just copulating. She seemed perfectly happy being on her own, enjoying her career and having her close connections with her friends (who mostly did want to be coupled). But her happiness in her life as a solo woman was judged because she was a sexual solo woman (although if she wasn’t sexual, she’d be judged, too — spinster, anyone?)
Like Samantha, I don’t know how to make being single work unless I have the sexual part, too. That’s part of the “happily single” formula for me because I’m just not into the celibacy thing.
Of course, I’m not single right now — I have a boyfriend and love, even though we don’t live together and I am often alone. Nor am I alone — I have a kid who lives with me part time, so that’s hardly “alone.”
Boyfriend or not, though, I’m happy being by myself (I’m pretty good company) and I’ve been happy being single — as long as I can have sex in my life.
- How do you define happiness as a single person?
- Could you be happy as a single forever, or do you plan to have your singledom be just a transitory phase?
- How much does sex factor into that?
- Is being “alone” for you a happy thing, or is it “loneliness”?
More single ramblings:
Commitment and freedom; can you have both?
photo © Nathalie P – Fotolia.com
Your perception is your reality, not mine
“That is quite the dress,” I said to Sara, looking stunning in the orange-red gauzy outfit she wore for a backyard get-together a few weeks ago.
“I don’t know. I think it’s too bright,” she said. “What do you think, Sean?”
“Uh, I’m not the one to ask. I’m colorblind.”
“You are?” Sara looked stunned, although I was pretty sure I’d told her that before. “So, what color is this?” she said, grabbing
a blue cocktail napkin
and flashing it before
his face. 
Sean sighed at the familiar exercise; everyone who finds out he’s colorblind wants to play the “color game.” “Look, I can tell you
what I see, but your colors and my colors are different, so what’s the point? We see things differently, that’s all.”
Ah, yes — and isn’t that true about everything?
Haven’t you ever been on a first date that you thought went great, and then you never hear
from him again? I’m guessing he obviously didn’t share your version of reality (although there could be many reasons why he disappeared).
We see the world differently. But it’s not just a guy or gal thing, although, granted, the sexes often see things waaaay different. She thinks the weekend they spent together having sex every which way in every possible location is one step closer to relationship status; he thinks, “Wow, I can’t believe how much sex we had!”
Each of us has different needs and perspectives, and whatever we experience is filtered through that, as well as whatever other distractions are going on in our head at the moment — which is exactly why we can’t see things quite the way other people see things, even though we think we’re seeing or experiencing the same thing.
That’s why when you’re hanging with others and there’s an “incident,” you’ll have as many versions of “the truth” as people who were there. Whose version is “right” or “real”?
Not to get all Rashomon on you, but wouldn’t they all be?
Makes you question whether “reality” is really real.
It can be frustrating, and sometimes I feel like, “wow, you’re not really understanding what’s going on here.” But maybe I’m not!
That wouldn’t be a problem if we approach each other with an understanding that we’re not all the same. The problem is when we start insisting that out interpretation is better than another’s or it’s the “right” one, or if we judge others for their experiences.
And we do that all the time, sometimes in big, dangerous ways, and other times in tiny ways.
“Ugh, I never want us to be like that couple over there,” I recently said to Sean, jerking my head in the direction of a couple sitting at a restaurant table in silence across from each other, seemingly lost in their own thoughts and joyless in their relationship. “How sad that they have nothing to say to each other!”
“Really?” he said, sounding totally surprised. “I was just thinking how peaceful they look, content in their quiet togetherness.”
And so it goes …
- Ever had a shared experience with someone whose perception was vastly different than yours?
- Has someone insisted that your perception of something is “wrong”?
Photo © Christopher Hall – Fotolia.com
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