Forgiveness and Reconciliation

Taken from my personal journal and edited for readability.

I thought for a moment that maybe I’m just selective in my forgiveness, but it was a relief that I’m able to put a name on the thing I most avoid. It’s not forgiveness that I can’t give: it’s reconciliation.

For one, it’s difficult to reconcile with everyone who has done us wrong. In some cases there are toxic and abusive relationships, even manipulative ones, that we avoid to reconnect in the name of self-preservation.

Forgiveness doesn’t mean reaching out and letting them know.

It’s more of a mental transaction. It’s a personal transformation where you stop rehearsing in your head what happened, wish them well and move on. Forgiveness is more for you than the other person.

But forgiveness is not a one-off thing.

Sometimes we relapse back to the loop of negativity. Sometimes people we tend to forgive touch old wounds, sometimes we do it ourselves. Oftentimes we can’t separate their wrongdoings from who they are.

What trauma does is we become instantly defensive. We close doors right away, we try to “protect our peace”, we don’t speak people’s names. We live in fear. We’re ready to attack.

I’m soft on forgiveness yet I’m hard on reconciliation. But I try my best to not hate and to pray for everyone.

I, too, have wronged people in ways I either did deliberately or didn’t mean to. I had a very close high school friend I’m no longer in speaking terms with. We had the greatest memories of our youth and it sucks that we could no longer be in the same room to talk about it.

As if we live in different universes now, our friendship just suddenly fizzled out and our lives no longer intertwine. Without the consciousness of it I still think though that I must’ve wronged them.

It’s great when they pop in my head at times. A nice memory, great friendship. But at the end of the day, it’s a closed chapter.

We’ve fulfilled each other’s roles in our youth, we helped each other grow. That’s good and that’s enough.

I just make peace with the fact that they’re happy with their lives without me in it, and pray for them. I sometimes feel that old friendships revisited only open closed wounds. I’d rather go out of my way, put my ego aside and live the life I love to live.

It takes a lot of maturity to accept that the stories we weave in our heads won’t always come to fruition. To force a connection because of our urge to “fix” things will only disrupt life’s ebb and flow. We can’t continue to live in yesterday as if it’s greater than tomorrow.

Oftentimes the best route is to be sincere in our silence, that in the stillness of not choosing to speak, we let go and let God.

It’s a beautiful thing to wake up the next day as a brand new person without having to prove your renewal to those you’ve wronged.