Neil Clarke

The school I work for during the day sets marks one day each year as Reflections.  Everyone is required to write a letter of gratitude, forgiveness, or insight to someone living or dead.  If I recall correctly, letters to the dead are burned and letters to the living are mailed.  Taken seriously, it’s a good idea, especially if you’re ready to let something go.  I’ve spent the last four years harboring some pretty deep resentments towards a few people who were once my friends.  It’s not healthy and it has definitely made it very difficult for me to put trust in people. 

Back then, I was in a job that I loved but was constantly being frustrated by.  I had an employee that I was trying to fire who was spreading lies and trying to undermine me.  My wife was pregnant with our second child and I was very sick, but didn’t quite realize just how badly.  The medical problems reached the point that they started impacting my memory, so that last year is pretty much a blur.  In retrospect,  I can see just how bad.  Oddly enough, I vividly remember the day things fell apart.  Without warning, three of my friends completely blindsided me.  I won’t go into details, but to this day, I don’t know why they did it.  Heck, one of them turned an walked the other direction when I saw him at a college reunion.  I was deeply hurt by their actions (a pain I still feel, though not as intensely) and became very depressed.   I took a leave of absence from my job (where they worked too) and ended up even sicker.  This was the bottom.  I couldn’t go back.  There hasn’t been a day since that hasn’t been impacted by those events.

Someone told me it wasn’t personal.  I have a hard time accepting that.   I can’t see how it wasn’t, but it’s time to let go.  I’m never go to learn what happened or why.  That life was like another family to me.  I see the delusion in that now.  I’m past the inclination to settle the score.  What goes around comes around and I don’t need to be involved.  Still, this isn’t something I can forget.  There isn’t any hope to look back and laugh someday and it’s likely to be a cold day in hell before I’ll receive any apologies for the shameless way the situation was handled.  Maybe I did something (is there something unspeakable in one of those memory gaps?), but 10+ years of friendship and being there for them should have counted for something.  If I did something, I never had the chance to atone.

So, no forgetting, but maybe letting go and perhaps even forgiving.  We’ll see if I can actually do that when Reflections occurs next week.  It’s at least a good exercise and something worth trying.