Etymology is an amazing educational tool, an enlightening tool. Last Thursday's edition of Ze Frank's vlog was mostly about revenge and forgiveness and forgetting, and it reminded me that I've been wanting to blog also about forgiveness, for awhile now. Ze says, "it's a pity the word forget was tied to forgive, it's just not that practical." Forget is fairly easy to understand, but what is forgiveness, exactly? The dictionary says it's "to grant pardon to" a person, or "to cease to feel resentment against," but these seem like 2 separate acts to me.

There's a wrongful act that someone did to me that I will never forget, ever, I predict, though I conciously think about it less and less, lately maybe only once a week or less, where it used to be, 4 months ago, about once every hour, at least. Self-help websites and books on the subject of the offense always say "you must forgive for your own sake" and I used to blindly accept that, but lately I've realized that those 2 definitions divide into one kind of forgiveness that I must enact, indeed, for my own sake - yes, I will cease to feel resentment (maybe I already mostly have... the resentment lessens all the time) - and another kind of forgiveness that I may never enact, for I don't know if I will ever "grant pardon."

Or perhaps I will, because "pardon" simply means to stop seeking punishment or penalty for an offense. Are these, these 2 things, all that forgiveness is? Well then, fine, maybe it's easier than I thought. Hmm. All of my life I thought forgiveness also meant something like "deciding that something someone did wasn't wrong after all." And I will never ever do that in this case. Perhaps the word I'm looking for is "excuse", one meaning of which is "To serve as justification for." Because it might be debatable, and the wrongdoer and other people might argue with me till the end of time, but I will never admit that this thing that was done to me was not wrong, was unavoidable, was neccesary, or was justifiable, or even was done with an appropriate regard for me and my feelings.

No. Never. Nunca. So, the transgression, it's forgivable, but it's not forgettable, and it's not excusable, and it will never not be wrong, ever. And I feel okay saying that, that is healthy enough, for me. My heart and my karma will continue to flower and grow when I forgive, but I don't feel like it will hurt me to not excuse.

So, I say to this person - and if you still read this blog you know who you are and what I'm talking about - you've done me wrong, but I no longer seek to punish you for it, and I no longer am angry, or very soon will not be; nevertheless it will always, forever, have been wrong, what you did to me.

Whew. well, shit. There's something else to talk to my therapist about tommorrow. heh.