On forgiveness, old pain, and the wounds that do not always stay closed.
From the Attic
This entry was written on April 6, 2020. It is shared here as part of an archive of old writings and reflects a particular moment in my life.
Content note: depression, emotional pain, and thoughts of death.
Forgiveness is so hard.
Something can be long over
and still hurt as if it happened yesterday.
I thought the wound had healed.
But if I am not careful,
it breaks through skin that looked perfectly fine
and starts bleeding again, just like it did back then.
I used to blame that pain on my own weakness.
Because I thought I was simply too fragile, too sensitive,
I thought about death all the time.
After counseling,
I started blaming the people who had hurt me instead.
I told myself they had been thoughtless and inconsiderate.
But no matter whose fault I decided it was,
I was still the one in pain.
And I felt pathetic for blaming them.
If someone asked whether I loved them or hated them,
I think I would still lean a little more toward love.
But because I loved them,
blaming them somehow became a burden of its own.
So how am I supposed to live?
The best thing would be simply not to hurt.
But sometimes the pain comes back for no particular reason.
And when it does,
all I can do is wait for it to pass again.
Blaming myself,
blaming someone else—
either way,
I am still the one who has to live with the pain.
April 6, 2020
Why I’m sharing this
When I was going through this period, one of the few things that made me feel less alone was discovering that someone else had once felt something similar. I’m sharing this old entry for the same reason. Not because pain should be romanticized or explained away, but because sometimes simply being recognized can be a kind of comfort. If you found this because you are in a similar place, I hope these words make you feel a little less alone tonight.
