Forgiveness

While I have shared my life online for close to 16 years now, there are still a lot of things you do not know about me. I think that is the way with a lot of online personalities. it is easy to share a narrative rather than everything. But one thing I have been very firm on in my entire life is I am not someone to forgive.

When I lost a good frond a few years ago, and he did not forgive me for making unkind remarks, I understood perfectly, because that is how I am. And people have told me that forgiving is not forgetting. But in order to move on with something, you need some sort of closure.

Now, I have never took this advice seriously because it never made sense to me. Why should I forgive someone who did a wrong? I mean, okay I get an accident. I also understand a child making a mistake. But I can just move on without having to forgive. It has never stopped me before.

But lately, I have been in a very weird place in my life. I think I wrote a little while ago that I am okay, and honestly, okay is not okay. I have not been able to sleep well. My anxiety is very high. I am nervous and scared and down. I am telling you this because I realized if I wanted to not share my life, then I would just have a diary. But I do not. I have this, with around 1,000 people who read, and eventually more.

So I have thought about it and it is time to forgive.

And that person is me.

People ask me how I deal with insults online. It is easy, I make sure I say worse things about myself so that no insult will ever top it. And I have disappointed myself for years. I should have been an actor, but I wuit the theater. I wanted to be a lawyer, but instead decided to pursue restaurant management. I kept getting passed over large promotions because they told me I was not ready. And I probably wasnt. I went into business after and failed. I wanted to be a writer but never had the courage to meet with people or put myself truly out there. And when I did art, I never focused on the beauty of what I did, just the comments from far left and right assholes and arguing over price on Twitter.

I look back at my life and when people tell me my words or art or anything help them, I do not see it. What I see is a failure. I am not calling myself one. I am telling you that it is hard to look past what I could have been. And every day now I think about it and every day it scares me more and more.

Some people take to alcohol or drugs to dilute these thoughts. I took to food. Over and over again. I laugh when people think obesity is about being lazy. It is the furthest thing from it. It will always be a disease to me. Because I never ate to eat. I ate to numb myself from feeling like a failure.

And things in life are better now. So much better. I can maybe even say closer to perfect than they have ever been. But I cannot sleep. I think about the past all the time. I think about my life and my choices and where I went wrong. And it kills me. And I hate that it does.

If you have not noticed, I did not talk about my son’s baseball season. Keep in mind, he is 14 in eight grade on a high school varsity team. He is 5 foot 9 and 185 of muscle. And he has had a good year for someone his age. But he also is hard on himself when he strikes out. And I know where he gets it from. He has had brilliant moments this year. But he beats himself up. And once again, I know where he gets it from.

So I need to forgive myself. It wont come today or tomorrow. But it will happen. I need to go back and send my writings to people who can get them published. I need to share my art with those who can share them with those who might need to hear the words. And I need to keep doing what I am doing with sports cards. It sounds funny, but I do not sell sports cards, just like I did not sell art nor subscriptions here or follow on Twitter. I am selling myself.

And I think I need to see what others see. So expect more writing. Expect more personal posts. Expect more thought pieces. Expect more art. Because while I teased this for a while, I have thought about writing this post all week long.

And today, I had the courage to do so.