… We simply choose to forget…

… We simply choose to forget…

“So it’s the laughter, we will remember
Whenever we remember the way we were…”
– Barbara Streisand

An aside… I can say that I only recently have been able to listen to portions of that song as it was Grandma’s favorite song and she would cradle and sing it to me when I was a little kid. She’s been gone for 6 years now and I still can’t listen through to the end without blubbering…

Last night I was watching “Californication” my new obsession on cable tv. To make a very long scenario short, the main character, Hank, CAUGHT IT, physically, from a young pugilist female whom he sexed and never called again and apparently forgot her face. He couldn’t remember why he didn’t call her back or why he failed to remember her at all… until a precarious situation involving him as the tre of a threesome where his friend was about to learn why Hank didn’t call back…

I saw someone on the street yesterday that hurt a friend/soror/sister of mine a long time ago. And truly the only reason I remembered his name is because the image of her tears rolling down her face as her sobs syncopated the syllables of his name is one that I can’t seem to get rid of no matter what I do. There are certain people you just don’t want to see cry. They’re always so bubbly and so sweet and wonderful that the idea of them crying is so foreign until you see it. And then it JARS you. (I remember I did that to a number of people at my father’s funeral. I felt so bad, but there was no more holding back to it…) To be very honest… I’m not 100% on WHAT he did to her. I just know that he hurt her enough to make her cry. He seemed to remember me very vividly, although he couldn’t place my name. I greeted him lukewarmly all the while thinking “you hurt my sister.”

It’s amazing that she has moved on from it, has a new someone in her life and that was YEARS ago, but strangely enough… I stay stuck back there. On the perpetual defensive against him for her feelings. I find that I do that for most of my friends and loved ones. Hold the grudge for them, just in case they’ve tapped into the Christianity to forgive. My job is to NEVER LET THEM FORGET. We have such a way of selectively remembering sections of our lives that were not really the best of times that when something or someone pops up from it… our faded memory may allow us to stray down that path anew. I feel that I’ve assigned myself to be the barrier to those roads for my friends.

Of course it’s do as I say… not as I do. Because I sure have forgiven folks who have done some inexcusable stuff. And even revisited paths where the mental greenery had grown over the “DANGER” signs on those roads. My brother stands firm as my wrong path guardian, though. Sometimes to his detriment… makes me want to avoid conversations with him at all re: certain people.

I find it so easy to forgive the transgressors in my life… but I wonder if the hate I harbor for my friend’s foes is killing my spirit equally as much…

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