Sept 1 Daily Entries -- Forgiveness

To my enemies. I forgive you, and I hope that you will forgive me.

I misunderstood you. I thought you were larger than you are. I thought you were powerful, capable, beings, and I expected much of you. I expected you to be excellent, and you were mortal. I expected you to be kind, but you were cruel and vindictive and thoughtless and human. You were tired. You were scared.

You were just doing your job. You were trying to survive. And that's what we're all doing here, anyway. Trying to survive until we don't.

So I forgive you, for not being what I expected you to be. And I ask your forgiveness, because I took the position of a child with you, and I never should have.

I masquerade every day as an adult. No one knows that I'm a child inside (just as I didn't see the child within you).

And so, when I hold myself out as an adult, my enemies rely on that promise. They rely on me to defend myself and to manage my own resources. And I didn't do that with you.

I was a child. I longed for your approval. I venerated you. I looked for you to fill a role in my life that was once missing--the role of friends and peers.

I expected you to be more than you were. I expected you to make me whole. And that was unfair of me. And for that, I'll ask for forgiveness.

I'll forgive you if you'll forgive me. Let's see the child within each other. The vulnerable yet hopeful human. And let's be brothers and sisters.