When you broke my heart, I went to a very dark place. I didn’t know what to do. I felt so lost and out of shape. I felt so broken and beaten. I felt like all of the energy had been beaten out of me and I just didn’t know how to move on from the devastation that you left in your wake. I hated you. I was angry at you. I was upset. I hated you with ever fiber of my being. And so it comes as a big surprise to me now that I find myself saying these three magical words: I forgive you.
Yes. It’s true. I forgive you. But don’t take it at face value. There is much depth underneath those words. Just because I forgive you doesn’t mean that I am pleased with how we ended things; with how you ended up treating me. Just because I forgive you doesn’t mean that I have scrubbed my mind clean of all the destructive and terrible memories of you killing my soul.
Just because I forgive you doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten everything that you decided to put me through. It just means that I’m choosing to no longer hold this grudge. It just means that I am choosing to let this weight off my shoulders. It just means that I’m deciding to move on without having to carry this baggage with me anymore.
I was angry at you for the longest time – and I didn’t realize that it was that anger that was slowly eating away at my own personal sense of well-being. I didn’t realize that it was my anger towards you that was creating such a toxic and destructive atmosphere around my life. I didn’t realize that my anger towards you was driving away other people I loved; other people who cared about me. I didn’t realize that my anger towards you ended up being an anger towards the world at large.
I had such a cynical view of society and mankind because of you. I almost stopped believing in the power of love because of you. And I realized that I shouldn’t have been giving you that power over me. I realized that I needed to let myself loose from your emotional stranglehold. I realized that my anger towards you was holding me back; it was keeping me from living the life that I wanted to be living.
I realized that all of my anger towards you was doing nothing to you; but it was killing me inside. I realized that it was foolish and stupid of me to be holding on to all of this anger towards you; because it was only me who ended up suffering for it. It was me who wasn’t benefitting from it.
I’m proud to say that I’ve finally let go of all of that anger. I’m proud to say that I finally forgive you; even if it took me such a long time to do so. But I guess it took me a while because I needed to learn for myself just why I had to go through this process. I needed to understand that this was something that I had to do for my own well-being. And it really doesn’t even have anything to do with you anymore. I’m forgiving you not because you deserve forgiveness. I’m forgiving you because I deserve happiness.
I want to claw my way back to a place of lightness of being – and I know I can only do that if I shed all of this excess weight that I’ve been bearing.
I am forgiving you because I have learned the value of compassion. I have grown to understand that all of us are dealing with our own personal demons; and when we are unable to address these demons, we wreak havoc on the lives of other people. And I’m choosing to let go of all of the demons that you chose to leave behind in my life. And I am compassionate enough to acknowledge the fact that you have your own demons that you have yet to overcome. And I feel bad for you. I feel sorry for you.
I genuinely hope that you address these demons – for your sake and for the sake of those around you.
But let me make myself clear. Just because I forgive you doesn’t mean that I’m willing to take you back into my life. You are toxic. You were toxic to me back then and you’re probably going to be toxic to me even right now. And I don’t want any of that anymore. The whole point of forgiving you is me letting go of all that toxicity. The whole point of forgiving you is me picking up the pieces and moving on with my life the best way I know how.
