The Forgiveness Project: Saying my peace & letting go

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I have been working lately on growing and part of that growth has been learning to forgive things from my past.   Mistakes I made and people who hurt me.  Trust has never been my strongest characteristic, with good reason.  With that in mind, I have decided it is time to formally forgive those who hurt me, not for them, for me.   So while I am saying my peace and forgive these folks, they won't be mentioned by any form of name. 

1.  Frankly you rarely cross my mind but that is mostly because of the way our friendship ended which was so cold and hateful and while almost every other friend I have lost over the years I have, at least some sense of responsibility for the end, with you I have none.  I honestly feel sorry for you. As attractive as you are on the outside it is as hateful as you are inside.  Obviously this isn't an apology.  This is forgiveness so I forgive you.  I hope you find some peace someday and I hope you stop trying to compete with your sibling and just learn to like yourself.  Maybe then other people will like you.  I hope you also learn to stop stabbing people in the back.  All the things you did to me, honestly made me laugh but I know you meant to hurt me so I do forgive you. Forgiven

2. We said some horrible thing to each other when our friendship ended and somehow I ended up the "bad guy" in the situation but the truth is you were out of line and while I will never understand how you could treat someone who was suppose to be a friend the way you treated me and you hurt me in a way no man ever has,  I hope your life improves because frankly you have always seem so angry, it makes me sad. I also know you don't care about my forgiveness and you don't care about me.  That's ok.  I am not asking to be friends with you.  I don't want to be friends again, honestly.  I would never trust you again after the things you said.  I forgive you for the hurtful things you said and the judgement you brought down on me.  You were wrong in the end, so it doesn't matter. Forgiven

3. Forgiving you means I have to actually think about you and that is something I try not to do but just this once, so I can let this go forever, here goes.  I forgive you for the lies and yes, they were lies.  I forgive you for your indecisiveness.  I actually thank you for that because I am with my husband because of that.  I forgive you for walking out on me. I forgive you for using me.  I forgive you for your lapse in pretty much anything close to honor or manhood. I am glad you found some, finally.   I forgive you for using my friends which, let's be honest, is what you do, to make yourself feel important. Most see through you, that's okay.  I even forgive you for being a huge reason why some of my friends didn't trust my judgement when it came to my relationship with my future husband. In the end I found out who my real friends are because of you but in the meantime you caused so many problems you don't even know about and you caused a lot of pain.   You are also a huge reason why I gained an amazing husband and family so because of that, and because I just don't care to carry the pain of you for the rest of my life, I forgive you. Forgiven

4. Your behavior hurts people I love and adore and I do not know how you continue to pull your stunts and look them in the eye.  I am so unclear how and why you do the things you do and how you live with your lies and criminal behavior.  You really should be in jail.  I forgive you but I am watching you and I will be there to pick up the pieces when you implode and you will.  I refuse to let those I love pay the price for your 'crazy'. I would ask you to get help but I know you don't want it.  I will simply forgive you, until tomorrow or the day after when you screw up again. Forgiven

Well, that's it.  I wrote my peace and can let go. I don't have anything to do with 3 out of 4 people and the 4th will never be out of my life until one of us dies so there is that.  There are probably a couple of other people I could add but I just don't really know that I have anything to really say.  Sometimes, you just stop being close and life goes on.  Sometimes you should never have been close to begin with. 

While I am forgiving I should say there are things I need to forgive myself for as well.  Falling for the wrong man, trusting the wrong friends, letting myself be used and getting angry at dumb things are probably the most important.   I learned from those things and forgive myself those things as well. Also, I am not perfect, shocker, I know, and probably need forgiveness from others but this is about me forgiving to heal not asking forgiveness.