It's 1am and I'm in an odd mood

[heywey]

I've been in and out of sleep all day sick. But I think the fog is finally starting to lift.

I've been going through old Martin Luther King Jr. speeches. He's an important figure to me, and his words have shaped my own thinking and beliefs a lot over the years.

One thing I've been struggling with recently is my relationship with one of my parents. The past few years she's been struggling herself, materially and emotionally, and I've ended up bearing the brunt; it's been a big factor in my poor mental health, and I feel like I've wasted some of the most important years of my life for dreams that aren't my own. I care about her and don't want our relationship to completely break, but I've been hurt so deeply by this whole thing, I just cannot let anything like this all happen again.

Anyway, it's not worth getting into all the details, but what I want our future relationship to look like and whether or not I forgive her have been on my mind recently. And for a while I've framed it in my mind as 'forgive, but dont forget'.

But tonight I'm reading this speech by MLK where he talks about forgiveness. He talks about how to forgive, but not forget, isn't really forgiveness. He clarifies that he doesn't mean you must erase the misdeed from your mind; but it means you don't let it determine the future. And he says this: "Forgiveness means the development of a new relationship." Such a simple and clear idea. Above all that's what I want, and what I'm going to work toward.

 

[U. A.]

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[timf]

The relationship with parents can be tricky. We are all born helpless, ignorant, and selfish. Our parents are supposed to help us improve on this initial condition. However our parent might be dealing with their own poor upbringing and not in a position to do a real good job themselves.

Sometimes parents, even with good intentions, try to push us in a certain direction that may not be a goof fit. Each person has to live his own life. If you are going to pay for the choices you make, they should be your choices.