Forget and for...what?

While looking for a beautiful and inspirational quote to write on the board today at the office, I ran across a couple of quotes about forgiveness. If you know me, then you know that just like religion, soccer and politics for some people, this is a delicate subject for me. So, I started thinking about a few experiences that have made me dangle between the bitterness and sweetness of it all. After all, us crabs change moods quite often, and as the typical crustacean that I am, “forgiveness” does not come to me easy.

So , one phrase that caught my attention said that “you should always forgive your enemies since nothing annoys them so much”. I thought… “Wouldn’t it be great?! Forgiving someone just for the pleasure of pissing them off? ha! ha! ha!” But then again, you wouldn’t be truly forgiving if screwing with someone’s head was your sole purpose, would you? I came to the conclusion that if you are what can be considered my “enemy” (so to speak), that means that you were never that close to me anyways. If this is so, by now then I probably don’t give a shit about what you’ve done. Of course, whatever you did, said to/ about me, may have been upsetting at the time, but in the long run you just wasted your energy. I don’t know if forgetting about it, and forgetting about YOU means that I’ve forgiven you, but I definitely don’t give a rat’s ass anymore.

Now, here I can include that girl who after claiming to be my friend stopped talking to me, and stabbed me in the back with everyone I knew, because she thought I wanted to steal her boyfriend (yeah right, because “CopperBoy” is every girl’s fantasy). Also, the neighbor who constantly threatened at 5pm in the afternoon to call the police if I didn’t turn the music down. The list goes on with the girls that live across the street whose mother told them to stop talking to me and my sister because the music we heard was the devil’s (so much for Savage Garden at that time). I can also mention the boss who seemed to enjoy making me cry; the girl that having a boyfriend (and already a daughter) slept with the one guy I was interested in (and sort of dating); of course THAT same guy that slept with her; the “girl” who enjoyed laughing at my ignorance because I didn’t know that she kept seeing my boyfriend (do i have a "cheat on me" sign on my forehead or what?), well….I suspected it, but her confirming it only made me rot even more.

So, if I see the list, it seems like a never-ending back stabbing! But like I said, all those can go F.ornicate U.nder the C.onsent of the K.ing themselves.

The real issue with the popular phrase “forgive and forget” is…what about when the person that hurt you is someone close to you? Someone you care about? Someone you love and trust and would give your life for? Then this becomes a sickening twist of the logic, because what in the world do you do with all those feelings? the contradiction? Does anyone know? Is it really that easy for you to truly forget and consequently forgive? Can you --without being Jesus, the Pope, or the reincarnation of Mahatma Gandhi-- do both? Some people say that they forgive but never forget. Mmmmm… in my case, I can be many things, but not a hypocrite. If you hurt me, and I care about you, I can try to forget but I probably won’t. And maybe I want to, with all my heart, but I just don’t seem to have it in me. Am I going to hell? (well, the hell I am!) I am not a bad person, I have tons of virtues I must say, but I think that not being able to forgive and forget is #1 in my “no can do” list.

I have to admit that more than once I’ve desperately thought about the possibility of having a lobotomy performed on me, so I can go all “Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind”. This way, maybe…with half a brain only, I can truly forget that thing you did that caused me pain, and bury the hatchet once and for all. Or who knows? maybe time does heal it all.