Forgiveness...

I think people would be terribly surprised at how much music goes through my head on a daily basis.  I suppose you could say I am a walking jukebox.  Sometimes, in conversation, someone will say something and I will just finish their sentence by breaking out into song.  Someone will say a word, and I will have lyrics instantly go through my head, where that word may be the focus…doesn’t even have to be the title of the song.  So naturally when I asked where people stood on forgiveness, a song instantly entered my head.  The Heart of the Matter, by Don Henley.  Click here if you would like to hear it for yourself.  The song pretty much sums a lot of stuff up really…the lyrics are pretty spot on.  If you carry around that anger, it WILL eat you up inside.

Here is how I feel about forgiveness.   I decide.  I decide who.  When.  Where.  And how.  It’s that simple.  Regardless of what happened or how it happened, I may forgive, but I will never forget.  A person has to make a choice when someone or something happens that hurts you.  It’s all relative.  I have asked for forgiveness.  I have done and said some stupid things, things that have hurt people.  Probably when I was drinking.  I have never intentionally hurt someone just to hurt them.  I don’t possess that quality.  And trust me I know people who do.  I know a lot of people who do things that later should require being asked to be forgiven, but they refuse…I guess we all beat to our own drummer. 

There is people, alive, breathing, right now, this second, who I will never forgive.  No matter how much time passes or what they could possibly come up with to apologize with.  I can physically look at these human beings and seriously wish they stopped breathing.  OH MY GOD!  Did Tiffany Buckman just say that?  Yes.  I did.   The men involved in attacking my father, (who was a completely innocent bystander and who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,) who walked away completely scot free.  I realize Karma is an actual thing.  But I may not be around to see it.  So to those of you who were involved, AND THERE WAS A LOT OF YOU, I seriously see your faces in public, out enjoying your lives and I seriously want you to rot in hell.  I do not forgive you.  I never will.  I don’t walk around hating you or letting it ruin my life.  If I see you, yes, then I think about it and yes, I hate your life.  I do not lose sleep over it.  I do not carry around anger and resentment.  I simply despise you.  Oh and while we are at it, I also despise the entire police force on duty that night.  I get physically sick to my stomach when I see you out there “protecting and serving.”  Protecting and serving my ass.

While I am on this roll, I may as well tell you there are a few others I don’t or haven’t and won’t forgive as well.  (Totally unrelated to the above mentioned incident.)  I do not forgive the “friends and family” who were involved in the bashing I received in my last relationship.  I don’t know that I ever will.  Perhaps someone involved is reading this right now and perhaps this will answer some questions for you.  There are two sides to every story.  People should seriously get both sides before they involve themselves in a situation that doesn’t involve them.  The things I was called.  The things that were said about me and the bullshit I allowed myself to go through at my own expense, I will never allow another “group” of people to ever do to me again.  I did learn a lot from this experience.  Sadly how to not trust or believe words that come out of people’s mouths, but if anything, to be a little more protective with my heart.

I did not deserve the things you said or the way you treated me.  I did not deserve the following words… “Clean up this mess, and you know it is a mess, and get rid of her, if you want to keep your family intact.”  I feel sorry for these people actually.  Pathetic display of “family” I have ever seen in my life.  Had I been treated like anything other than the subhuman that I was, I would not feel this way.  Unfortunately I wasn’t.  Trust me when I say that no one has gone on with their lives regretting having treated me like that.  They are able to lay their heads on their pillows at night knowing they were cruel and hurtful.  Do they think about it?  No idea?  Do I?  Only when I see them or something reminds me of the situation.  It doesn’t control my life.  I don’t harbor the kind of hate that makes me suffer because I can’t let it go.  I did let it go.  And the bible spouting Christians that they are can deal with God when he is ready to deal with them.  The God I pray to and the Jesus I believe in did not want people treated like this.  So I absolutely adore when bible verses are thrown at me and am condemned because of who I choose to love, even though that very same book they throw in my face, is the same one that does not condone their behavior.  People are interesting.

Anyway…there is my two cents on forgiveness.  I will if I want to.  I won’t if I don’t.  Does it make me a bad person, I don’t know, I am the one that has to live with that.  My lack of forgiveness affects no one but myself, so who gives a shit? 

The bottom line?  To each their own.