Forgiveness and Endings

I see the bright shine of a brand new wedding ring on the engagement finger.  The ton of bricks hits me.  But because of my recent, new-found befriending attitude towards myself, it feels more like a heavy down comforter being thrown on top of me in the middle of the summer.

He plays with it, twisting it around his finger.  A semiotic precious metal.

The west seems to have a very mixed up  idea of things like “endings” and “forgiveness.”  We like to think that when something ends, it’s over, behind, in the past.  We like to think that when we have forgiven, it is over, behind, in the past.

Even a good book or musical theater or an 11- inning baseball game is not over when it’s over.  We still recall the magical highs and cathartic lows of the characters, the foot-tapping songs and the crack of the bat against a home-run ball.  It may be in the past, but its beauty and ugliness and sensual experience is not forgotten. And so it is with human relationships. 

I’m taking a mediation class with a small group of individuals, all of us in the same type of humanitarian aid work.   I thought I knew all there is to know about meditation.  But studying meditation for meditation sake actually requires an examination of how the different styles and types of meditation impact us.  Recently, we practiced a befriending meditation – to befriend ourselves first as we go onto befriend others.  I’ve done this type of meditation before (Pema Chodron).  But this time around it made me realize how far I am from befriending myself.

In the ensuing discussion, participants focused on forgiveness, even though this was not anywhere near the purpose of the meditation.  But as the meditation required us to wish “well-being, safety, peace, contentment” on people who we experience difficulty with, some participants manipulated this into meaning we should forgive these people.  It took much patience for me to sit there and listen to the conversation.   I am in a stage of struggling with the meaning of forgiveness...and endings.

Forgiveness doesn’t feel like a finality, an either/or.  It feels like a process.  And so ending, doesn’t feel like an end.  It feels like a process of letting go.  It feels like welcoming memories with smiles or sadness and than just saying “thank you.” 

Some days I wake up and I long for this friendship that I clearly and compassionately pushed out of my life.  This friendship meant more to me than maybe it should have, but I don’t live in the world of shoulds and should-nots…just is and is not, or in this case was or was not.  It meant a lot to me, but I had to say no to it because it was never going to lead to where I wanted it to go.   Even though I want a relationship with a life partner that is built on a solid foundation of friendship first and foremost, this was not what my friend believed.  I blamed myself for getting caught up in it, for the should and shouldnots.  If I “ended” it, if I was “forgiving” this person than why was I missing him?  Why am I alternating between remembering the fun times with sweetness and recalling how unfit this person is to hold a significant relationship in my life?  Why was I feeling anger towards myself?  Resentment for him being so beautifully human that he could not fit into some box that I wanted to fit him neatly into?  How could I declare my stamp of approval on “ended” and “forgiven” with these feelings running through my head?

In the odd way that life seems to always want to show you two sides of the same coin, another friend recently told me that she does not forgive me for wrongs.  Demonstrating a trait that has tripped me up many times in my professional and personal relationships, I withheld my heart and communicated in a very insensitive way with her.  The first time it happened with this particular friend, I looked myself in the mirror and offered an honest apology explaining the  feelings and experiences I was going through that caused this trait to rear its ugly head.  I mistakenly thought that forgiveness had been granted on her side, again, as if it’s an act that is done in finality.  When the trait showed up again, I again went through a protracted apology, but this friend made it clear that even the first apology was not enough to fix the damage that was done.  I’ve also clearly walked away from that friendship with a two-fold lesson now.  One, as to how important it is to stay present to my heart so that I don’t continue to repeat this trait.  Second, how difficult it can be to grant forgiveness in the desire to protect our hearts by holding onto narratives about ourselves and others.

I’m learning to accept that forgiveness is not some dot at the end of line that we reach with finality.  It is a cycle, a process and a beautiful wave of life which we are called to ride out and learn more deeply about ourselves during the ride.  It requires a high degree of security, self-reflection and a dose of your favorite brand of “seasickness medicine” might help as well.  I have ended relationships these past few months.  They are over, at least the process of being over.  And I have forgiven myself and them….at least as I understand it in the sense of it being a process.