A Plea to You, All of You.

You know what scares the shit out of me? Thinking I will never forgive anyone. My enemies. My lost friends. My father. Myself. That they will all die before me, some without me even knowing it, I will grow old, and the world will go on, and I will disappear into it, with my greatest memories long rusted resentment, and on my deathbed, in a moment of shattering clarity, I will stare up at that freckled white hospital ceiling, and think to myself "I'm sorry." And they will never know.

I have abandoned people completely over things that I knew would not matter in a year, or five, or ten. So some girl in high school I liked kissed you? So what? So you were young and angry and said some things you didn't mean? So what? So you made a few bad (or terrible) decisions? So what?

Years have gone by for most of you. Decades for some. And yet I can't help but keep my grudges. I don't carry them with me. They are no weight on my back, but in the rare occasion I am reminded of you, there they lay, waiting. That pinch. That dart of faded pain. That rule that says I have to be angry with you. Really, that's all most of them have become, and that is all any of them will become. A rule I make to dictate how I am supposed to feel about you.

But, you see, here's the conundrum; I am a firm believer in "if it won't matter in a year, why should it matter now?" So, what the fuck is wrong with me that I can't forgive you? Why do I feel it necessary to hold my arms up against you for decades while the world goes on, we both grow, times change, and I fucking know it?

Well, goddamn it, I forgive you. I say it here and now, drunk and introspective on the internet. I forgive you.

All you fuckers. You abandoners. You liars, thieves, cheaters. You abusers, elitists, you willfully ignorant. You imitators, impostors, and ingrates. You, you self deprecating bomb, I forgive you. It's okay.

It's okay.

I know it would mean more to name you. To call you and say, "Hey ____, I love you. I'm sorry." But I just don't have the time or resources for it. But, I think the important thing here is for me to look around my cobwebbed closet of bullshit and be able to say "God damn, glad I got rid of that box of unnecessary resentment."

Maybe it's something for you to think about, too. Not even you whom I have hinted at here, but you, reading this, and even you, who aren't. Yeah, they were assholes, but in the end, do you really want to feel that way toward anyone? Ever? Do you really want to give up on that chance of being a better person? It is so easy, and so wonderful.

It's not hippy bullshit. I want you to understand that, because reading this all back, I worry that it is coming off like that. It's not. Resentment, hate, grudges. They wear on your mind. Your being, your soul (if that's your thing). They bog you down as a person. maybe you don't realize it now, but in the blink of an eye, in a few decades, you might look up and say "oh shit, I have been a fool." And, keeping this anger makes you a fool, undoubtedly.

You can't get decades, or years, or days back. Once you spend them, in anger or otherwise, they are gone. Each moment you spend carelessly, is spent. You inch closer to an inability to fix small, human, beautiful matters that are both pointless and everything all at once.

I beg you, forgive.

Please.