Forgiving myself

Something I have to forgive myself for

Today's topic is difficult. I wear guilt like jewelry. I don't easily forgive myself.  I am not Catholic, but I have always identified with the sense of purging guilt through confession and pilgrimage. I took my husband on the medieval route to Santiago de Compostela ten years ago--justified by my being an art historian, but fueled also by my desire to take a journey to self-discovery and forgiveness. (My atheist parents are horrified by my Catholic sympathies, which I admit adds to the luster of my preoccupation.)

I usually forget peccadilloes after a long time of self-flagellation, then remember and feel tremendously guilty all over again.

Then there are those low-lying, constantly present, subconscious things that cause continual discomfort. I know they're there, like an something rough in my clothing, chafing my skin. These are the times when I've let people down. Not just forgetting to return telephone calls, but actively hurting people who love me deeply. I don't think there are good ways to hurt people, but sometimes there is conflict and it must happen. My problem for years was fear of rejection, hating to reject others, and yet doing things that were even more hurtful, and not honest either to them or to myself.

I am thinking of one particular time in my late teens and early 20's. It stands for many other similar situations, and in some ways I have forgiven myself for what I did. I absolutely regret what I did, but the person I hurt was devastated to the point that although we tried to be friends afterwards, we now haven't spoken for almost 14 years. This saddens me, but I can't control what he does.

This is, of course, colored by my being adopted and my self-loathing.

Without boring people with too much backstory, I used to be very, very, very very (is that enough very?) insecure. I had attachment problems. I always felt that there was something about me not good enough for anyone really to love me. I had the normal teenage girl drama with my BFFs (your usual backstabbing and betrayal). But what I wanted so desperately for was a boy/man to love me, for me, all of me, and be as attached to me as I was to him. I wanted not to be abandoned.

I decided early on that one particular boy was "it" for me. But this story is not about him, although he set the bar for what I thought I needed. He always lay behind my quest and was the unattainable ideal, like my absent fmom. If only he loved me forever, I told myself, I would be fine. If that were the case, this would be a Disney movie and I wouldn't be writing any of this blog.

But he wasn't available, or was only available sporadically. I became really good at toying with boys' emotions. I fed off their attention like a leech. I needed them to feel good. I knew how to entrance them, then I'd throw them away like garbage. Or not, and lie about my constancy when I was anything but. I was looking for love in all the wrong places, blindly and stupidly. And all of the time I was sinking deeper and deeper into a hole of self-hatred and loathing. Why couldn't the "right" person love me?

I never left a relationship without having another one lined up. God forbid that I had to stand on my own two feet and love myself. I had no idea in the fog that in order to love anyone the way he needed to be loved, I had to love myself first.

So when I was 18, I created really huge drama, ending my high-school romance by becoming engaged to one of my acousins. Yep. I did. It's not as creepy as it sounds because my afamily is huge. We had never met until he was 20 and I was 18. He grew up a California beach boy, blond and worldly by my Midwestern standards. We had chemistry, and being adopted, I acted on it. I didn't really think about what it meant for my afamily, for him, for myself. We are so very, very different, but when I was 18, all I could see was the smile and feel the love.

He is a very good person. He loved me with everything he had. He was generous and kind and would drive for 12 hours just to spend 12 hours with me before driving back to where he lived. Who does that except someone to whom you mean the world? Time went by. I was in college, he was in the Navy. I wanted to go to graduate school. He wanted to settle down and start a family.

I did what I always did. I made decisions for myself (which isn't necessarily bad) about studying abroad, felt myself putting my emotions elsewhere, withdrew, and started a relationship with someone else. Without really breaking up with him. How horrible is that?

He found out, there was painful family fallout (obviously), and it took me a very long time to get over him. I did love him, we just weren't meant to be life partners. Why didn't I tell him how I felt earlier? Why didn't I finish one thing before starting another? It was heartless.

We resumed a friendship after we both had had some years to settle into our lives apart. I thought it was going well. We both lived in Northern California by this time. We talked about what I'd done to him as he saw me do it to someone else. He was rightly angry with me that seven years down the road I wasn't learning my lesson.

Then what seemed like one day to the next, he completely withdrew from me. I called him to wish him well on his 30th birthday, and my aunt and uncle called me back to say that I wasn't to call him anymore.  I am not quite sure why this happened, but he got married two months later, and I suspect it was because I was an ex and he needed distance. It hurt, however, that he couldn't tell me himself. Well, I suppose I deserved it.

That was 14 years ago. I heard things about him through my parents occasionally; I wish him no ill. I have been struggling with bad health issues over the past several years, and last summer I saw that he'd written a very sweet e-mail to my dad, asking about how I was doing. I decided that I would write him an e-mail, wishing him all the best for his birthday and saying that I am open to friendship if he ever changes his mind. I heard nothing back.

I am married. I truly have no secrets from my husband, and I've done some not-so-nice things to him, as well. We have lots of problems, some that might be insurmountable. There is no clear path to happiness, but we are doing our best. He loves me with everything he has, and I do the best I can to reciprocate.

I need to forgive myself for not being true to these men--and also not true to myself. Problem is, I was blind and lost and very, very confused. I have grown up a great deal in the past 22 years, as one would hope. I wish I could go back and talk to my 18-year-old self and tell her that she had it in her to be strong, all by herself.