How Do We Ever Forgive Someone We Love?
How do you let go of your inconsolable pain?
I don’t want to forgive her. That’s all I know more than anything. I don’t even want to see this woman’s face. Our confrontation replays in my mind’s eye and in nightmares. Where I yell at her at the top of my lungs. Until I don’t have any oxygen left to do it anymore.
People who hear the situation kid that I hate her. I could never feel that emotion for anyone. I care for her too much, that’s why it hurts so much.
Instead, in the moment of our confrontation, I fell into a never-ending silence. I stone walled myself. My emotions hid and buried in case they threatened to suffocate me. I’ve expended so much energy on being angry. It’s exhausting, depleting from my essential essence.
A knock plays on my door. I’m resolved to hold onto this lividness. It was this woman that shared information I begged for her to keep quiet. There’s so much fucked up shit going on that I feel like a human sideshow act.
My privacy is the one thing that I’ve always fiercely protected. As a worker I’ll survive and thrive in any situation. At my workplace you’ll think my life will be perfect when in reality the house is on fire. You just never saw me sweat from the flames licking at my face.
“Hey.”
She’s in my doorway. Attempting to appear playful. Her eyebrows waggle at me. This tall, mountain of a woman leans into my space. She knows I’m still pissed from my narrowed eyes. I grunt at her in response.
“Don’t you grunt at me.”
“Hmmm, I have every right to grunt right now.”
My emotions roll and tumble. Like a tsunami waiting to crash and destroy everything in front of it. She knows why I’m angry. The last time we talked I probed her if she was the leak for my personal information. She squirmed like I was trying to roast her on hot coals.
“It wasn’t me.”
She keeps repeating these words. I know from her guilt ridden face that it was. This makes me even angrier that she’s lying again.
“Then who was it? Who could it be?”
My voice raises. The anger of the past few months builds up within me. I’m going to lose my shit in the worst way. In a rage filled scream where I let her have everything. I tell myself I have every right to feel this pain interlaced with madness.
Then she does something I don’t expect. She starts crying. This strong, rough edged woman breaks down. And my own emotional walls start to crumble at the sight of it. Our glasses fog at the rumbling of our ill contained feelings. I’m astounded, confused, so many things in one.
“I can’t have you mad at me, MD. I just can’t. Come over here and hug me.”
I do it. I take off my headphones from my neck. My arms embrace her and the tears roll down my cheeks. I’m angry crying. My breath comes out in raspy edges.
“I was so angry!”
I shout. I squeeze her tighter with this raw, honest admission. And it’s true, I was so ridiculously angry. I’m still holding onto the betrayal. She hugs me so fiercely and it just makes me cry harder. I sob and my nose automatically closes.
“Fuck this year. Fuck everything. I should have stayed until the lease was up. We’re so slow right now. How do I get through this?”
I’m mumbling incoherently. Even as the words come falling out of my mouth I know it’s not true. Staying with my ex-husband wouldn’t solve anything. I’d be walking on broken eggshells trying not to shatter them into millions of pieces.
He would have to wait until I left to begin his new life. It would be the same for me, and I’d be avoiding my home like I was.
“You shouldn’t deal with that shit. You don’t need to put up with him.”
My body shakes with my gasping breaths. There are so many moments in my life I wish my mother hugged me like this. We always hug each other with such a warmth I crave. I’m crushed in a compactor of emotions that have only built up to try to destroy me.
When we part from our hug I don’t know what we are. We’re better but we’ll never be the same again. She wipes away my tears as I hold my glasses in my hand.
This only makes me start crying. I know I don’t regret hugging her. She broke me down with her own tears. I’m spent, exhausted, and my work shift has only just started. The rest of the day is a blur of good people I get to interact with. They provide a temporary salve to my raw pain.
I know I should forgive her but the wound still feels too fresh. I don’t know how to not to protect my heart when I feel betrayed.
