The Myth of Instant Forgiveness

As most of you know, I made a very difficult decision several months ago to end my marriage. The why is important and I am not ready to discuss it in such an open forum yet, but I will say my situation is all too common, and that it was a huge mistake to not take this step years sooner. I will also say I feel I did all I could to save the relationship, and that I have now chosen to sever nearly all communication ties, because of the temper and tone of that relationship.

So now I am dealing with the emotional aspects of things. When people say that divorce is almost as hard to deal with as death, they are correct. You do go through phases emotionally, you do make huge adjustments physically and financially, most of which you didn't foresee or plan for. One of the things one has to deal with if forgiveness, of yourself, and of the person you have decided to end a life commitment with.

Forgiveness in these situations is important, as it is in any situation where betrayal or hurt has occurred. Most  religions agree on the importance of forgiveness and the benefits of it for the person doing the forgiving. They agree that harboring resentment instead of working towards forgiveness can be quite harmful to the person not willing to forgive. They also all say we should forgive and as soon as possible, but none have a firm timeline or an exact methodology that is proven to work every time. It really is a difficult thing to do and it takes time for a person to work through the reasons they feel hurt, and then to decide that they are not going to hold that hurt against the person who caused it.

Then there is the assumption often made by the offender, that the offended needs to forgive them right now, and that things can go on the way they were as if nothing bad had happened. Also a common assumption is that the offender no longer has to deal with the negative consequences of their action. They think that being forgiven fixes it all, and it needs to be done right now. They may try to convince the offended that God tells you to forgive and you need to be doing so right now. Those are simply myths.

One other myth is an understanding of what forgiveness actually is. Forgiveness is a person's decision not to hold an offense against them. It means that you respect that other person to not let that offense make a big difference and allowing that person to have a chance to redeem themselves. However it is not a license to be a repeat offender. To believe otherwise is wrong. The person who did the wrong needs to really work hard not to repeat the offense, recognizing that continuing the offensive behavior will eventually lead to negative ramifications. The forgiving person can, at any time, say that they are going to remove themselves from the situation, because that stuff keeps happening and they don't want it to anymore. Saying, "I am  not going to allow this anymore." is not being unforgiving, it is simply protecting oneself from current or future harm.

This last is what I have had to do, on several fronts, with my soon to be former spouse. If one wants to find forgiving someone much more difficult then keep yourself in a situation or relationship where you know those offenses are going to occur. It's true, because that is exactly what I did. I finally had to put even greater barriers between us, because the lack of them was so unhealthy, for both of us.  I don't know if he understands my decisions, despite earlier attempts to explain them, and quite frankly his understanding has become much less important at this time. I just had to decide for my benefit, and my mental health, that it was important to sever ties so that I could deal with the emotional, physical and financial aspects of the decision I made last October.

 There's a lot of baggage there, that I am having to unpack, and decide what to keep and what to toss. It is difficult, yet it is healing, and it has taken a lot of time, and personal reflection. In some ways I have forgiven him, but in others I haven't yet, and in all honesty I don't see it happening this week or even this year. There is still a lot of baggage left that I had forgotten about, and that keeps being discovered. Eventually I'll get there, and my heart will be completely healed. I know forgiving is the right thing to do, as it frees my heart and soul from the pains caused by others or even myself. I no longer have to hold on to negative memories and resentments, mulling them over and over. Forgiving will allow me to  completely move forward with my life, catching up to the other positive steps I have already taken.

Come on already!

I purposely moderate the comments on my blog. I know that the readership here is nowhere near what I get over at The Spark but I do know probably one or two people venture by now and then. There is an exception to this. For some reason, known only to the people who are initiating this campaign to annoy me, I get comments to two of my old blogs, just two. One written November of 2009 that I wrote about the humble clothesline the other I wrote in late February of this year discussing my usual crazy agenda. It is entitled March Madness.

All other blogs have little or no activity as far as comments go. Why these two blog entries are targets is beyond my meager capabilities, but the purpose is to get me to be a spamming advertiser for whatever someone is trying to shill, with me being the shill-ie. I get an attempt to let a spam laced set of advertising in at least two or three times a month. I see the attempt hit my email box, see that yet again someone wants me to do all the advertising work for them then hit reject comment.

So all you wanna be scam/spam or should I say lazy advertisers who think I am going to let you use my under-read blog to sell male enhancement crap (yuck, now I have an icky mental image), pills of dubious origins, links to pornographic content or websites, or just plain old junk you have a warehouse full of, just stop. I don't even get free samples of any of your junk...not that I want any of what they peddle, to make even considering letting you use my blog for your personal billboard appealing.

Of course if you choose to consider continuing with attempts at wearing me down with links to the hottest new gimmicks, then go right ahead. My delete box is on an all spam diet, and your comment attempts are like ambrosia to it.

Now for the rest of you, all 11 who I know at least acknowledge this blog's existence, comment away! I welcome what you have to say.

Plug it in

;I am going to make this Febreeze Product review short and sweet. I was recently sent two plug in varieties of air fresheners, one by Glade, and the other by the Febreeze company. I have made it quite well established that I have zero smell capabilities to things like this, so I let my daughters do the testing. The Febreeze products is new, called Noticeable, as you can see in the image. It has dual scents that are compatible. And according to my tester, Megan smells GREAT! We had it plugged in her bathroom.

The other plug in we used as a comparison was a Glade plug in Lasting Impressions version. It too had a nice smell according to my tester, but it only had one scent. Either product, if one chooses to use plug in air fresheners are nice, but the added benefit of the Febreeze odor eliminator and the dual scent option may be preferable to some. I was thankful that I didn't have any adverse allergic reaction to the scents, as that sometimes happens.

On this product comparison I will, give the Febreeze product a slight advantage over the Glade because of the dual scent option. My tester thought both worked quite well, but the dual scent made the Febreeze a winner in her opinion.

Amazon has given me a nifty new option to actually show images and links to any products I mention here in my little blog. I am giving you links to both the Glad and the Febreeze products I tested so you can find for yourself which you prefer.

Wrinkling my brain

 There is a myth that when you learn, you add wrinkles to your brain. If that is true, then hopefully by the time I finish college in a few years, my brain will resemble an over-dried prune, minus the moisture issue.

As a result, of all the homework I have had this summer, yes I took 12 hours, 9 of them online, my brain is going through a wrinkling process, or turning into a big ball of mush. Summer semesters are shorter then regular ones, resulting in a speedier working through the course work. Accounting has been a whole lot of fun to this gal with only passable math kills. My glass top desk must have a surface of some tensile strength as it has endured the frequent bashings  it has received from my head as I struggle to grasp a concept. Thankfully, unless I completely blow the final, I should pass the class with a low B...I hope.

The other three courses have been surprisingly complementary. I am taking Philosophy with focus on ethics, a Sociology and a World Religion class. I have found it quite interesting how one class focus has elements of another class's focus contained within it. I should do pretty well in all of those classes, as I find them enjoyable and readily understandable. Plus I am benefiting for broadening my understanding and appreciation
 of the wonderful diversity that is humanity.

Unfortunately the school + work +Sylvie needs to sleep sometimes equation leaves me less time for other pursuits, like a social life, or writing for just the fun of it. This blog is somewhat neglected and I am putting of a product review until I can concentrate fully on it. It is all I can do to get all the reading needed plus assignments, plus work, plus a weekly column, plus other mundane tasks to consider writing for creative purposes. I miss that already.

Thankfully this semester will end in a few weeks, and I get a break until the Fall Semester starts. Luckily for me one of my classes that semester will be degree focused, as I wade through more of the pre-reqs needed to graduate. People ask what I am going to do when I get out of school. I honestly don't know what a Creative and Professional Writing Degree will offer me, but I am looking forward to finding out.

These past few months have been highly transitional, and looking back it has all been for the right reasons. One of my future goals is to one day write about the reasons why I find myself where I am today. With a good writing skills foundation, hopefully it will be something that people would want to read, and  laugh at all my funny anecdotes not my frequent grammar errors.

In the mean time I will continue to etch wrinkles into my brain.