Forgiveness

It’s a tricky thing, isn’t it? It’s even trickier when you are trying to forgive yourself. My mom, aunt and I are all in tough situations. They have one (that does affect me in a large way as well) and I have one (that does affect them because they love me). The three of us are such peas in a pod, it’s freaking ridiculous! My mom’s sister is 14 months younger than her so they pretty much grew up as twins…and as much as I hate to admit it, I am very similar to my mom. But, daughters should be somewhat similar to their moms, so I guess I will just accept it! :)

Anyway, back on track. The three of us have been presented with stresses that we have never encountered before. Almost at a level we have never encountered before. (OK, my mom has definitely had this level of stress (or more) before...but I haven't!) And, because of how we are as people, we have been constantly worrying, wringing our hands, pulling out our hair and adding wrinkles to our faces because of it. Here’s the kicker: there’s nothing we can do to change either of the situations! Both situations were 100% caused by someone else. These other people are messing up, they keep messing up, have always messed up and will probably mess up for the rest of their lives! No matter what we say or do or how much we love these people, it won’t matter. They will keep going on like nothing is wrong and the rest of the world is one big, fat, stupid idiot.

It’s ironic…yes. The ones that mess up in life are often the first ones to point out how everyone else in the world is wrong. Not them. They are right…everyone else is just too dumb to see it.

So, it’s not about my mom and aunt and I forgiving someone else. There is nothing to forgive. They don’t think they’ve messed up, they haven’t apologized, they won’t apologize and they sure as heck won’t ask for forgiveness. Because they are perfect and there’s nothing to forgive. Nope, the forgiveness I am talking about today is the kind that you give to yourself. We have been stressing out over situations almost completely out of our control…then beating ourselves up for stressing! It’s quite a conundrum. So, I emailed my mom and aunt this morning and told them that we are going to forgive ourselves for stressing about that which we cannot change. Then we are going to move on and live our lives happily. We will also let go of any resentment because that will get us nowhere fast as well. We aren’t judgmental people (well, not more than anyone else), but we are going to start aligning ourselves and befriending others that have more of the same kind of character that we have and/or would like to have. It’s healthier to live that way, am I right?