Forgiveness

I think I figured something out.  Something very important.  And while I don't think it'll really change anything for me, that doesn't make it any less important.

I need to learn to forgive myself.

Maybe I don't deserve it (to be perfectly clear, I believe that I don't).  But that doesn't matter.  The point is, I've been so busy blaming myself for things that have happened that are long gone.  I did it again.  I let myself get caught up in the past, after promising myself I wouldn't.

I've spent so much time hating myself over what's happened.  I've apologized.  Repeatedly.  To everyone.  I can't change what happened.  And really, everyone but me has moved on.  Everyone has their own life and new problems.  What happened then is in the past.  That's what finally hit me.

Whether I deserve to be able to or not, I need to move on.  It's over.  There's nothing I can do about it.  So I need to stop torturing myself with it.  I need to live my life.  The one that's happening around me now, not the one that was two years ago.

I'm okay.  I know I'm okay because things don't hurt the way they did.  I wrote letters and I was content to let ink flow rather than something else.  They calmed me down instead of angering me.  We're no longer the people we were then, not at all.  Pieces remain, but on the whole we are different.  We are all better.

And again, this gasping realization that I'm okay.  That I can breathe without breaking.  That everything is really fine.

Yes, I still feel responsible.  But it's over.  I can't keep reliving it.