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Forgiveness

What does it mean to forgive? Describe a time you had to forgive yourself.

Like every year since 2004, I have spent the past month and a half acknowledging that I need to make room for mourning and not quite doing it. I fear the quiet moments. Sober and alone with nothing to do is a scary place. It's where I need to mourn and, incidentally, it's where I need to work. It's my past and my future and staying present to it is a nightmare.

What is so scary in the stillness? In the stillness lies the truth. When I was 17, the truth was that my mom was dying, clamoring for life, for me, in pain, disoriented, scared, alone, and dying. I was there to witness her death because she fought for one more day. I was absent while she was dying because I was scared and nothing can ever change that. Now, the truth that emerges from the stillness is that she will never forgive me in this life. I don't want forgiveness on her behalf -- "I forgive you," is hers and hers alone to say. But I need to find a way to relieve my guilt of the past... to move on... to move through, as i've recently heard...

My therapist and some people in a Facebook support group think that I need to forgive myself. But I don't know how because I don't know what forgiveness is. I suppose I have forgiven other people. And I understand the person I was at 17 so much better than I did then. I understand that that person was trying as hard as they could to survive. It wasn't pretty but they did it.  I have regrets but I'm here to have them... so I understand that was the best I could come up with at the time.

But I can't wrap my head around what it would mean to forgive myself. I can't say I made the right choice because I don't believe that. I have tried to learn my lesson... to be with people when they are dying whenever possible. I have a place for her now in my living space. I speak to her when the wind blows hard. I acknowledge the lessons she taught me and strive to live up to her rigorous standards of caring for others.... but forgiveness still eludes me.

But until I manage to forgive myself I will live in fear of the place where I need to mourn and grieve.

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