Forgiveness

Wow! Has it really almost been a month since my last blog?? Time really does fly when you are having fun. I honestly logged on here thinking that it had only been a couple weeks. Whoopsies.

Without further ado..... My thoughts....

First, a question. When you view the picture below. What do you see? A freshly mowed lawn? Or a freshly PARTIALLY mowed lawn....  That's a toughie.

This is one of many narotic tendancies I'm starting to see that my father has. His obsessive lawn mowing has gotten a little out of hand lately, but since I hadn't mowed the lawn in about a week, I did what he asked, for a bit of exercise..... Don't worry dad, I'll finish it tomorrow, but really, has the grass grown that much? He seems to think that we need to mow twice a week. My GOD!

As I walked across the street to fill the gas can, because, yet again, I'm left with no gas, I tell myself, "I forgive you, I forgive you," over and over in my head. This is a little trick that my therapist taught me, which has helped me with SOOOO many things. It's funny how forgiving someone, even silently in your thoughts, makes things better, or funnier, whatever way you want to take it. A friend suggested that I start forgiving people outloud, but I think I forgive my family so much that they might be more annoyed by me then they already are.

I had to forgive my father earlier today, when he wouldn't come save his favorite daughter after her car wouldn't start. Excuse me, but isn't that what dads are for? Helping their kids when silly shit happens? All I know is he was the first person I called, and I now realize I can't depend on him when he's "busy" (at an auction, spending money). When I teased him about it tonight, my mom responded by saying that they were just trying to let me be independent.

I forgive you mom, and I'll swallow my pride next time you're stranded, because we both know the odds are it might happen some day. I love you!

I wrote that little segment above about five days ago and after this weekend, I feel kind of like a different person. Let's just say, in a nutshell, since there are allot of things that not everyone needs to know about my past, I'm realizing that the one person I need to forgive, is myself. I've done some really awful things in my life, but that doesn't mean that I'm a terrible person, and that's starting to become clear to me. A belief that I've held on to for years is that since I clearly don't have respect for others, at times, I must not be deserving of being respected and living the best life possible. Screw that belief. I don't know why I've been saying that to myself this whole time.

After this recent self-revelation, I decided it might be in my best interest to clear everything up with a man that I love dearly. We may have had to take a step back to being "just friends", but a part of me has been missing since we completely stopped communicating, and I realized yesterday that it was because I hadn't felt like I had been completely honest with him, so I changed that. What I got in return was the purest form of kindness and respect that I've ever recieved from anyone. I now know that I deserve to have people in my life that make me feel good, but I need to return the favor. If either of us can't do that, then we probably weren't meant to be friends in the first place.

Wow. That feels so good to say out loud. As I'm sitting here on my deck, enjoying some coffee on a Monday morning, I feel at peace. Now how do I bottle this up and carry it with me through life? I think for me, it's not internalizing all the things that I'm ashamed of. I keep saying that I need to learn from life's mistakes and I think I'm finally able to wrap my head around what exactly that means to me.  For me, it's understanding what I did wrong, forgiving myself, and as I move on, I leave it behind in the dust. If I can let these mistakes teach me a lesson and let them go, I will continue to propel upward and onward with my life. So with no regrets, I perservere, on this crazy journey of mine, trying my best to never look back.

The view from my deck.  Who wouldn't be envious of this?

Have a wonderful week!