One Step At A Time

I realise a week on forgiveness would not be complete without something from my personal stock of experience. Let's face it, this is one area where forget high school, I've barely passed kindergarten. I've got some grudges that have been set in place at the age of 2, which was when I started retaining and not forgiving what happened to me. Which is weird for a kid, because they tend to forget and forgive naturally.

Anyways, I've stopped talking to a dear friend. Or rather, she stopped talking to me. But I guess I started it, deleting her angry emails, not returning her phone calls (which from my point of view were growing increasingly hysterical about what I considered a non-issue).

She sent me three cards (registered) which never reached me and I couldn't be bothered to go chase them down at whatever post office I would have to go to (the irony is that if the cards had not been registered, the postman would have simply dropped them off at my postbox and there wouldn't have been any fuss).

So she sent me the contents of said cards...I skimmed through them and one had to do with me not sending her any more stuff (couched very politely, of course)...and another had to do with returning whatever of hers, I still had (again, couched politely). I ignored the polite phrasing, took the broad hints, and answered only what I thought needed answering. That her stuff would be sent back by next post. No, I hadn't watched it, and I couldn't be bothered to (she had said something about 'discussing' it and I didn't care to).

So I put them in an envelope, took them to a post office nearby and sent them off. In the meantime, more emails which I left unread in my inbox and finally deleted. Whatever she had to say, especially at this point, I was not interested in reading.

Of course I know that's not the way to go.

But I was angry, hurt and disappointed. And what I thought was this: I have been a good friend to you. I have been there for you. And now this. You fall out with me over something as stupid as undelivered muruku?

Of course, the muruku wasn't the point. The relationship had taken years to get to this pass, years in which I wouldn't or couldn't listen to any honest evaluation of me, years in which I was never honest to her, in return, about her own shortcomings, years in which we pandered to each other's hypersensitivity.

If a relationship is not honest, there is no way you can save it.

At least, not in its present form. What comes from lies, will dissolve in lies.

You can't paper over it no matter how hard you try.

She didn't like who I had become (or maybe, who I always was). And I certainly did not like who she had become.

So, there was this great wall of silence. I sent her a letter because I had been instructed to by a healer who said I had a tsunami heading my way from all the broken and then, disregarded relationships in my life. It was arrogant, the healer said, to discard people in that way. To say, henceforth you are dead to me.

I didn't want to write the letter. I argued: "She will probably just tear it up without reading it."

The healer said: "It doesn't matter. You're not writing it for her. You're writing it for you. It is an act of humility, humbling yourself enough to write to someone who has cut you off. Or someone you have cut off. Making the first move, so to speak."

So I sighed, ordered a glass or two of red wine, listened to Mark play, and wrote out the card I had picked. At Backyard, of course.

As expected, she didn't reply. Maybe she had torn it up without reading it. To tell you the truth, I was relieved. No need to revisit painful memories. No need to go over wounds that were still raw. No need to...whatever.

And so time passed, people asked me how she was, I replied not too good, I think, although of course I had no idea and no means of knowing.

Well, in five days time, it's her birthday. I remembered it and went and picked out a card. Then I took set it aside for days and days and allowed it to gather dust on my desk and I didn't feel in the mood to write anything. Nothing that came out would be sincere after all. And what if she just tore up the card?

The healer's voice in my head: "That is not the point."

Yeah, I know it isn't. And I didn't have to buy the card in the first place. It was the letter I was instructed to send. Not a birthday card.

So why did I do it anyway?

Late one night as it stormed and Maggot went cracker dog (he has Marley's reaction to thunder and lightning) I sat and wrote out the card. And then I picked up my address book and went out into the rain (it was still light at this point), with Arnold on a leash, overjoyed that he was getting a midnight walk, and posted it. I was wet. My dog was wet. The card (which I had stuffed under my tee-shirt) was not.

Not a great story of forgiveness or reconciliation (especially as there was none), at least there hasn't been any so far, but I thought I'd share it here.

You know, something real.

Without the gloopy words or window-dressing or sentiment that I am famous for (in writing, if not in real life).

So many bridges to mend.

So many relationships to sort out.

One step at a time.