A Note on Forgiveness

Since I left the Valley, I never had a positive relationship with my daughter's father. I had always tried my absolute best to get along with him for the sake of my daughter. Considering he was a miserable human being, she had always been very attached to him. At the time when I left him, my kiddo had just turned two and I felt like I owed it to her to make the effort to have him continue to be a part of her life. He made that task very difficult.

Though the course of 2010, he made my life hell. His calls would usually end up in threats against me and my family. His texts would remark on how I was probably partying it up over here. To him, that was the reason why I had left him in the first place. In his troubled mind, I wanted to be single again and find my daughter another father. He would call my work whenever I didn't return his calls or his texts. His newest girlfriend had also started texting and calling me, making sure that I knew she was now involved with him. For some reason, she thought I had been working on getting him back. They made my life so stressful. There were times when I thought this would never end. 

I tried my best to keep all this to myself, I figured this was the situation I had gotten myself into. Eventually, I had to let my family know what was going on. My parents would tell me to change my phone number. To ignore his texts. To not worry about him; that he really couldn't do anything to me. They never understood how that wasn't easy for me. After so many years of living that kind of life with him, I didn't know how to completely disconnect. I knew I didn't want to go back but I couldn't cut all ties with him. There was some guilt associated with that decision but more than anything, it was fear. I was scared of him. Of what he could do. Of where he could be. I was living three and a half hours away from him but I was absolutely terrified of him. 

I've always heard, some things happen for a reason. I thought people were lying when they said that. Well, in March of 2011 I fully understood that concept. That month, I stopped hearing from him. All communication from him had seized. At first, I didn't breathe any sighs of relief. I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Unbelievably, it never did. His first letter arrived sometime at the end of April. He was in jail. 

Long story short, he was sentenced to four years in a state jail. My days were calmer, my life seemed brighter, I breathed easier. All the letters he sent went unanswered. Many of them went unread. I felt like I was finally free. Until I realized I still couldn't talk about him without feeling angry. I couldn't help but feel bitter whenever I had to refer to him. I hadn't yet dealt with those feelings, or what I had gone through with him.

My mom would remark on how angry I sometimes seemed when I spoke of romantic relationships. Friends would comment on how blase I was whenever I spoke about incidents of the physical abuse I had gone through with him. Others commented on how defensive I was, and on how cold I had started to be. So I decided to write him a letter. I figured that would be part of my healing.

The first letter turned out to be five pages. It carried all my anger, pain, resentment, and my complete hatred of who he was as a person. It outlined every episode I had with him. It retold all the verbal arrows he struck me with. It let him know exactly what I thought of him as a human being. At the end, I never sent it. I figured it didn't send out the message I wanted him to receive.

The second letter turned out to be three pages. More than anything else, it carried my pain. It carried my questions of why he would ever want to hurt me in such a way. Had I really deserved it? It carried my sadness at realizing that everything I had ever done had not been enough to make our relationship work. At the end, I didn't send that letter out either. I wasn't satisfied with the overall message. He might've gotten the impression that I wanted to try again, which was the absolute last thing on my mind.

Third, fourth, fifth, sixth letters were all basically the same. Until one day, out of the blue, I felt what I needed to say.  The letter turned out to be two pages. It was void of all accusations; questions of why were omitted, and the pain had somehow evaporated. The only thing this letter carried was my forgiveness. It was a notion that had never crossed my mind, but it ended up being what I had to do to let go. I had finally forgiven him. 

I received his reply a couple of weeks ago and to be completely honest, it didn't really matter to me what he said. All I know now is that I feel at peace. I feel like I dealt with something that I was running away from for a long time. It's not to say I'm the 'normal' me. I don't think I can ever be that person again, but I'm not bitter. I'm not angry. I'm not hurting. Not anymore. 

My outlook on life is a bit brighter. My smiles are no longer forced and although I'm still defensive, I've let people in. I share my life with others, which I found so difficult to do not that long ago. I'm still a work in progress, that goes without saying, but there's hope for me yet. 

As Einstein said: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results." That could sum up the last couple of years of my life. I felt like I was running around in circles, expecting to find an exit outta the blue; when all I needed to really do was stop, listen to my heart and finally move in the direction that I had always avoided. 

Anyways, I'm not completely fixed. I'm not completely healed. But I've made great progress because at least now, I can be sincere, which was something that had disappeared several years ago. 

Just thought I'd share that with you. Since my blog has pretty much served as my therapy, perhaps that might explain the sparse blogging. But I'll find other stuff to talk about. I always do. Besides, there's always hiccups along the way. Now, though, I feel a bit more complete to deal with them. 

:-)