The Complexity of Forgiveness: Letting Go or Holding On?

November 25, 2024 / Lisa / 5 Comments

One of my sisters recently asked me if I had forgiven our mom. I thought she was referring to something that happened many years before, but today I realized she may have been talking about an event a few years ago. That event left me betrayed, hurt, and angry for a long time. But have I forgiven mom? What exactly does that mean?

Some say you should forgive and forget. When I hear that I always wonder how they expect a person to purposely forget something. It’s not like your brain is a dry-erase board. I assume what they really mean is ‘forgive and let go’. Which, of course, can be pretty darn hard to do.

When I hear people say they’ve forgiven someone, many times I hear an element of pride, or ego, in their voices. As if saying that means they are superior to the one they forgive. That makes the cynical part of me wonder if they forgave because they were ready to let go, or if they forgave to show themselves a better person. Which is different from forgiving to make themselves a better person.

I think ego is perceived in forgiveness when a person feels the need to tell the other one that the’ve been forgiven. If you are truly letting go, does the other person need to know? Are you forgiving for your peace of mind, or to be able to face the other one and say, ‘I’m better than you’?

Is there a little bit of smug humility in there?

*I was mad here. My brother was trying to help.*

Someone once told me that they had finally reached a point where they could forgive me. To this day, I have no idea what I did that I had to be forgiven for, and it hurts to think I did something that impacted them. But I’m glad they were able to let go.

Of course there are always situations where a person needs to face the other one, needs to look them in the eye and speak the final line of their story. To be able to be strong, say they are letting go, and then walk away. That’s strength, not ego.

I do’t think the act of forgiving ever means that a person is saying what happened was okay. Forgiving never means, to me anyway, that what happened should have happened. This is where I start getting hung up on forgiveness. Because isn’t that what forgiveness is saying? I’m letting go of that. I didn’t like it, but it’s okay, we’ll just move on. Why should someone be allowed to go on like nothing happened?

That makes me think that forgiving someone means they don’t get ‘punished’ for what they did. There are no visible consequences.

Yet, who are we to be the judge and jury? How do we know they return to their life unaffected? Even though we may forgive someone, that doesn’t mean we were right, or blameless, either. No argument happens in a vacuum.

I don’t claim any clarity of understanding or wisdom. I’m going to be honest here and it won’t reflect well on me. When I’m asked if I’m going to forgive someone, I get a bit testy. Of course I’m not. I’m going to walk away. I’m going to work on letting go of my anger or hurt. But I’m going to sit back and wait for Karma. This doesn’t mean I brood on things. After all, when my sister asked me if I’d forgiven mom, I’d clearly forgotten the Big Event.

I can walk away. I can choose whether to have that person in my life or not. I can protect my peace of mind. I can have very clear boundaries to make sure something like that never happens again. I can build a very high, strong wall that the other person can’t get through. If that means I’ve forgiven someone, then I guess I have.

The Power of Memory: Exploring Emotional Connections

November 4, 2024 / Lisa / 5 Comments

I remember a German Shepherd. I could see out the kitchen window where the dog waited outside, watching me. I remember a feeling of sadness, a sense of knowing the dog wanted in, possibly a sense of loneliness because the dog wasn’t with me, but that could be me projecting on to the memory. I asked my mom about the dog once because I have no other memories of it. She said I couldn’t remember him because I was only six months old. It was a neighbor’s dog she was babysitting and it bonded with me and didn’t like anyone coming close, so she had put him outside where he then watched me through the window. She said she’d forgotten it until I asked her.

Maybe I was six months old, but I remember. It’s a clear image of the dog and the window, and a sense of emotions that I can put a name to now.

It made me think about how we remember. When you say ‘I remember…’ or ‘that reminds me of…’ do you think of it like a story, in words? Do you suddenly see the memory like an old movie or photo? Do you hear the voices of those involved? I strive to focus on what a memory is like when one surfaces. I think, for me, it’s a narrative, a sudden story, the associated emotions, and maybe, rarely, an image or visual.

Of course, the way my brain wanders, those thoughts sent me down the path of inherited memory, which I believe in for several reasons. One is a conversation with a person writing a thesis on inherited memory as a premise for deja vu. One comes from a conversation with a best friend who is an expert on genealogy and the odd things she’s come across. Plus, my own experience of feeling immediate emotional ties to a specific place, that sudden strong sense of being home, where I belong.

That path then led me down a side trail out to our hot tub on Samhain. Sitting in hot water in the darkness on the day when we honor our ancestors got me thinking of the countless generations, the thousands of years, the billions of people, who lived their lives and contributed to our DNA. Think of the trillions of memories and stories that have come down through time and been lost to time. Think about all of that held in what makes you, stored in your blood. So many, many memories, that you have no memory of. So many, many stories you’ve never heard, from people you never knew, that are part of your ancestry.

Don’t you wish you could hear them? Someone from the days of cave art sitting by a fire sharing with you the inspiration for their need to place their hand against stone and leave an imprint. Someone accused of witchcraft. Someone washing clothes in a stream on the Oregon Trail.

It blows me away to try and comprehend all the memories that were part of creating my DNA.

Especially when, while I remember that beautiful dog at the window, I can’t remember what I did last week.

How Solitude Fuels Creativity

October 15, 2024 / Lisa / 3 Comments

My husband and I work at the same place, which means we are together all the time. We commute together, we have lunch together, we’re together on our days off. Tuesdays are the exception, when I work and he has the day off to himself. It’s wonderful. There isn’t anyone else I would want to be around every single day, round the clock. Plus, when I come home on Tuesdays, dinner is waiting.

The thing is, though, I run away occasionally. I take a week off and go visit a sister. We goof off for five days straight. It takes five hours for me to get to her house. That five hours is my alone time. My husband never gets that break, or any break long enough to reset.

I finally convinced him how important that is. The last few years, it’s become more important to me; possibly because I no longer take it for granted. So…he went. Took a week and a road trip and lined up things he wanted to do. I saw the opening and also took the week off, to stay.

He thinks he should do this every year. I agree.

Right now, the house is quiet except when I play music. It’s chilly and raining outside, which is my favorite weather, so I couldn’t have timed this better. I decided I would spend the time doing nothing but writing, which has been hard for many reasons.

The first day he was gone involved an internal battle. I could take advantage of this time to deep clean the house. I could clean the big wood box on the deck and fill it with firewood. I could focus on finishing some Christmas gifts. I was even desperate enough to consider washing bedding, flipping mattresses, and cleaning under the beds.

This time, though, I kept reminding myself of the ticking clock. I only had so many days alone. I had to be disciplined. As hard as it was, I did it. I won the battle with chores by emailing my friend, Susan, also a writer. I asked her how she was doing plotting a new mystery, and then told her I needed to be accountable to her, reporting in each day on what I’d written. She jumped on that, and has been reporting in on her progress as well. What a difference it makes.

Accountability is nothing new and I know I need it. The difference is, this time, I set it up beforehand, recognizing the dangerous temptation of household chores when you’re home alone and faced with a blank page.

I have discovered that the story has been there, waiting for me. I’ve spent two days closing loop holes, deleting boring parts, and gathering in the characters because they’ve spent a lot of time doing nothing but running around in the woods. With, you know, no accountability.

I have also discovered that while I thought I was doing very little writing over the past three years, I’ve actually done more than I thought. I’ve been working on the sequel to This Deep Panic and I can feel the ending near. Not to say it will be finished shortly. Only the first draft. The storylines will need to be pieced together, transition chapters between storylines and characters written, and the whole thing edited. And revised. And edited.

But the story is there and it’s taken nothing more than some alone time to realize it.

There is so much to be said for the healing of solitude. For how we need time in just our own company, even if we spend that time deep cleaning under beds. I know there are a lot of people who can’t be alone, and some of them are in my family. They have their own tools for finding what I find in solitude. But for me, quiet time is imperative.

For now, the sequel is tentatively titled Otherkin. Do you know what that word means?

People who identify as half human, half other. Someone who identifies as not human. Maybe part animal or part nature as in a tree. Or part mythical being. They are our ‘kin’ but not fully. I also take it mean those who are with us, but unseen. It’s a dysphoria that actually exists. Look it up; it’s fascinating.

In the meantime, I’m going back to writing now. The otherkin are drawing close.