Forgiveness

They say you must forgive others in order to forgive yourself.

I feel like my journey of forgiveness hasn't been quite linear but this year I will have to face it head on.

I have taken steps to fully forgive my mother, albeit while she is on her deathbed. A woman who I inherited less than desirable traits from; her impatience, her negativity, her despair, but I find it easier to gripe with when I see her as someone trying to survive. I also see myself in that resilience to live and want better for myself. I think it's okay that dreams change. I'm trying to learn that change isn't failure through her eyes. I accept that even as someone as neurotic and sometimes cruel she can be, there has never been any doubt that she loves me. She has made mistakes and I forgive her.

Every therapist I had has told me that the barrier to forgive myself for every cruel mistake I have done is that I don't have the capacity to forgive others in my life and I struggle to understand how I could.

How can I forgive people who have wasted my time truly? How can I forgive someone who's only inheritance to me was their trigger anger and ability to take things out on people who love them? How can I forgive the creator to my monster? Especially when they wait for me at night when I close my eyes. Someone who I haven't spoken to in years, but I hear every single day. Someone who is constantly reminding me of every failure I have done and will do. Someone who gets the privilege for being a better person now, and that I should forgive him for not being the same person. How can he be forgiven and absolved of any responsibility and I be left with every ounce of pain? Is it unfair that I punish him now, knowing I'm making a human suffer for their past actions? Am I just as selfish and cruel as the man who raised me?

Forgiveness for my mother is a circle of life. A warm hug and a weight off my chest.

I don't know what forgiveness for my father would look like. I don't know if I want to know.

and if I cannot heal, then at least the cycle of shame and suffering will end with my last dream.