Forgiveness...

Two posts in one day - overkill!  However, when I am inspired to write, I write, and watching the movie version of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love inspired me, big time.  It has been a tough year, to say the least.  I spent six weeks of my year in intensive treatment, and while it was sometimes about figuring out how to deal with the demons we all must confront, it was about something more - learning to love myself, warts and all. Treatment was one more stop in a long journey to discovering who I am, and defining who and what I want to be. 

While Gilbert's journey to discovering herself was inspired by the dissolution of a marriage, I identified with her so much, as I am sure almost any woman can.  Who am I?  Who am I outside of the roles I have? I ask these questions of myself all the time.

One part of the movie takes place in Rome, and she and her friends are sharing a delicious meal and she is asked to tell the word that expresses who she is.  She says, "writer".  Her friend laughs and says that is what she does, not who she is.  In America, we are so caught up in what we do.  Not having worked for the last year, I can relate even more to this.  "What do you do?" is one of the first questions we ask someone we've just met.  What we do is oh, so important.  I'm this, or that.  As if our job title is an essential clue as to who we really are.  This is not so in other countries.  We are often so much more than the few words that describe certain aspects of our lives - wife, daughter, mother, teacher, writer - each title is only a tiny clue into the whole of our soul.

What really struck me, though, is Gilbert's stay in India.  She's trying to meditate and she's struggling.  Like me, she closes her eyes and hopes to reach that clear-minded state of connection with a higher power, but instead she notices the fly on her neck, the fan in the room, seventy conversations she's had, memories, and more, opens her eyes, looks at the clock, and much to her dismay a whole minute has passed.  Oh, how  I related!  How do I silence the inner critic; that never quiet chatterer that sits in my head narrating and demanding and dictating?  I struggle so with prayer and meditation.  In frustration she lashes out at a gentleman that can see himself in her and has the wisdom of time and experience on his side.  How in the heck can she find peace, she wants to know.

His advice? He tells her she has to forgive herself.

The words cut to my core.  Forgiveness is not a new concept for me.  I've managed (through many costly hours of therapy), to find ways of forgiving others who have offended me in minor and major ways.  It's never been too hard for me to find forgiveness for others.  I believe in second chances.  I believe people are generally loving, decent people who sometimes screw up.  I believe we can change if we want to.  I have wholeheartedly forgiven so very many events and people.

Except, for one.  Me.  I've failed to forgive me.

For I am not worthy of forgiveness.  I am too bad, too selfish, too worthless, too many things.  I am not forgivable.  So despite those hours of therapy, despite six weeks in emotional boot camp, I had failed to realize that I was continually punishing myself.  I was punishing myself for being unforgivable.  I could not, and did not, forgive the person who needed forgiveness the most.  I had given her up for a lost cause.  She was irredeemable, forsaken, abandoned.

I am seldom emotional at movies, but tears rolled freely down my face as all of this hit home in 30 seconds tonight.  One of my birthday wishes today was from my dear cousin Lisa - that I have many blessings.  What a blessing this one, tiny lesson has been.  What an amazing birthday gift!  I haven't, as a result of the unfolding past three hours, wiped the slate clean and been reborn.  Rather, I've realized the necessity, and given myself permission, to forgive myself.  And that is what the tears are about.  The anguish, the relief, and the pure gratitude that I realized this at 29 instead of one day later.

I wrote earlier today that I am inspired by memoirs because I love learning from others the amazing life lessons that we each encounter.  This couldn't be a better example of that.  Had one woman in New York City, in another walk of life, not written so honestly and beautifully about her own anguish, relief, and gratitude, I might not have known the joy that I feel tonight.