Forgive and forget, forgive or forget...
I'm often faced with these choices, and phrases like these are no newcomers to me. Sometimes, they would be thrown to me together with a bunch of asinine queries in some survey that I find interesting to answer. Sometimes, I would be forced to choose like when a friend would hysterically ask me in a matter of life and death. What comes to mind though is that are they really difficult choices? Contrary to some, I don't find them to be.
I spent the previous night having late dinner with friends whom I haven’t seen and spoke with for quite some time. Some came, some didn’t. It was unfortunate because not all of us were there. We were no match to their hectic schedules. Still, we had fun. Pure clean fun. We dined, took photos, shared some laughs, stories, jokes, thoughts, and then we went home, which is quite contradicting to what we usually did whenever we hung out. Lying in bed, I thought about this person who didn’t come. Never did I anticipate the arrival since there was no assurance either. Well, maybe a little. But I didn’t think that the absence is a waste though. I just thought that it would’ve been nice for her to be there, for her to make it. We all wanted to see her. I wanted to see her. While pondering, I thought about all of the things this person did to me, and I’m still wondering why I was able to let everything go without hating her so. Did I forget? No. Forgive? I strongly believe so.
I remember my high school freshman days. I got into a very shallow misunderstanding with one of the most popular girls in school over a boy that jeopardized our friendship. I told her a secret of which she wily used to her advantage. She won, technically. That’s a given fact. I mean, how could I even compete with the It Girl/Girl Next Door/Crush ng Bayan? Not a single damn chance. She’s pretty, has this porcelain-like complexion, and everybody just loves her. Well, I despised her. The mere sight of her tormented me day after day. My agony reached the height of wanting to transfer schools because I didn’t want to see her face ever again. I still can’t imagine the amount of insecurities she had brought upon me that lasted until my college sophomore days. There was no closure actually, but it left us an unspeakable gap ever since. But it’s true that only time can erase all wounds, and along with that comes acceptance. Accepting that there will always be people better than me; accepting that no matter what I do, nothing’s going to change; and accepting that some things are just not meant to be.
I learned a lot from this experience. I never thought that something this shallow and dense could bring forth so much enlightenment. It’s true that with acceptance comes forgiveness. You just have to suck it all in and see things just as they should be. Because oftentimes, pride overrides acceptance, making it even harder to forgive. But when you do forgive, you also tend to forget. Forget in a sense that you are willing to let everything pass, to let everything go. You disregard the pain, the tears, the troubles, the burden, the importance, the joy, the efforts, the frustrations, the bitterness. You become unmindful; not because of numbness, but of acceptance. That everything is just a thing of the past, like nothing seems to matter anymore. But then, you don’t really forget...not unless you have amnesia.
