When the cleaners come every other Monday, my anxiety gets triggered*. Yesterday it was cleaning day, and my brain let loose a dose of adrenaline and cortisol that left me staring at the ceiling with paralysis and overthinking everything. One of the big feelings that came up was anger, and as I explored that emotion, I started wondering: what is forgiveness?
Now, I wasn’t just mad, I was pissed off. About very significant and habitual actions from a couple of dudes who treated me as a possession, not a human being. This was 20 and 30 years ago. As I flipped their memories a couple of birds, using what little physical strength I could muster, I said to myself, “Emily. That was so long ago. Why are you like this? Let it go.”
The idea I had in my mind of forgiveness (probably from the fundamalist days of my youth) was that if I truly forgave someone, then I’d never want to be mad at them again. But that’s bullshit, isn’t it? Especially if these two offenders I’m thinking of never acknowledged the harm they caused and instead doubled down on their absolution by claiming everything bad was my fault, actually.
The dark clouds began to part when I stumbled on this thought: forgiveness isn’t whether or not I’m mad.
So what is it then? If something triggers a thought of one or both of these assholes and I get mad, how is that any more my fault than the original offenses? If they don’t regret anything, what’s to be forgiven?
I’ve decided that for me forgiveness is how often I think of them and how often I let those thoughts get me mad. To be fair to myself it isn’t really very often and I should be proud of the fact that I barely think of these two now. And when something does remind me of that time? Well, it’s only natural to be mad. In fact it’s helpful to associate anger with being treated like crap.
Oops. I think I just forgave myself.
* It’s the change in routine. The people who do the work are basically perfect.