What Forgiveness Means

I'd been meaning to pick up Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be : Lessons on Change, Loss, and Spiritual Transformation, by Buddhist writer and teacher Lama Surya Das since it came up in my recommendations on Amazon. The title alone spoke to a lot of what I've been working lately; dealing with the aftermath of 30+ years of untreated ADD, and forgiving myself and others for a lot of the pain I've experience in the past.

There was one sentence in one passage that spoke clearly to me as a gay man who grew up in a home where accpeptance of my being gay wasn't forthcoming (and still isn't), and who came out at an early age only to face unrelenting harrassement from my peers. I'm certain many other gays & lesbians have had similar experiences. This was the sentence that set me off. A woman speaking about her relationship with her own family said:

"... forgiveness means letting go of the hope for a better past."

Like a lot of other gay people, I know I carry around the residue of past painful episodes when I found myself the object of someone else's homophobia, whether in the form of harrassment, rejection, or discrimination. For me, it's been the fuel for a lot of my activism; somewhere in this 35 year old body is the little boy and the teenager who wanted — and still wants — acceptance from the people around him and the society he lives in. I know that I haven't stopped being angry, on his behalf, at my parents for being unable to accept me for who I am, at the peers who made many of my formative years miserable, and even for the nameless, faceless people who seek to make people like me second class citizens or even to eliminate us altogether.

I wrote earlier on my blog about dealing with memories of painful events and circumstances and forgiving myself for my part in them.

I take a breath and say the same things to myself: It wasn't my fault. I did the best I could at the time. I had a disability that I didn't know about then, and couldn't cope with on my own. And in doing just that much, in telling myself just that much even if I don't always believe it entirely, I find a kernel of forgiveness from which grows the beginning of forgiving myself; forgiving myself for not knowing, for not being able to manage what I didn't know about. I start to feel just a little bit more compassion for myself, then and now. And I heal just a little.

That much I find I can do. I can reach back and comfort that little boy, and that teenager who still live in those circumstances in some ways. But that doesn't seem to go far enough, really, to wash away the residue of anger and pain that remains from those times and circumstances.

That much, I expected. But in the face of forgiving myself and beginning to let go of the anger and frustration I felt towards myself, I realized almost by accident that I will have to extend that forgiveness to the people I encountered and who got drawn into the difficulties I was having back then.

On some level, I know that I have to begin to be able to forgive people in the past, and in the present for their homophobia and how it affected or affects me. I know that until I'm able to do that, to tell myself believably that they didn't know any better, and were doing the best they new to do with a limited understanding, on some level when I remember those times I will still be "hoping for a better past," for a happier childhood, for more accepting parents, etc., rather than accepting the past as it was and forgiving those involved, including myself.

I'm not there yet, and I'm not even sure that's where I'm going with this, but for me I know it's time to stop hoping for a better past and start working for a better present.