The age old philosophy of forgiving and forgetting...

As I sit here brooding over thoughts in my head, when it should be clear for the week coming ahead...I'm cursed with the mind of a writer, and inspiration hits me at the oddest times - when I should be sleeping. I was thinking of the sage old advice that grandparents pass down to grandchildren, parents pass down to their own, the idea of forgiving and forgetting. But where does the line blur? Is it with the forgiving or the forgetting, and where do the twain meet that it causes problems in relationships?I think back to the one person I knew that had committed one the most heinous crimes...he was the first to come to mind as my computer slowly started booting up - now several are coming to mind. But he was a friend from childhood. He didn't even commit anything against me, it was a crime against someone else, the worst to be committed...murder. I didn't know the person he killed, and it took me a long time to forgive him for committing the crime. I tried not to let it impede our friendship, as it really didn't have much to do with me at the time - or so I let him think. But, in actuality, it had a lot, and when he made that decision to end that person's life, he broke my heart, that he had the capability to commit such an act on another human being. Over time though, I forgave him. But, I've not forgotten. Yet often times I wonder if he were ever back in my life, or if I ever came across him, if I'd be as happy as I was 18 years ago to be around him. Not because so much has changed, or because we are older, or times are different, but because in that one second in time, he took that idea that I had of him away from me. That idea that I never thought he could go that far. A friend once told me, that I shouldn't allow people the knowledge that I was once a dancer before I broke the, well let's just say the 120 pound mark back then, he said it changed the whole image of who he knew me to be. I always argued the point, saying that I had nothing to hide, and that it only made it more of a difference to see how far I'd come, from where I'd been. Because that had been, by far, the lowest point in my life in some respects. And where I was then, it should've made him happy to know that I pulled myself up from the gutter all alone. That I was strong. But that wasn't the problem - and he really couldn't look at me the same, he let it be known that it was a real problem in how he viewed me from that point on, and that I should never tell anyone that information so freely again. (Of course the measly two people who read my blogs, already know this information and knew it before him - so, it doesn't really matter what I write on here!)Could it be the same with my friend that committed murder, and the friend that didn't ever want to know that I had been a dancer - the same idea, but on a different level? That concept of forgiveness and forgetting? Stepping it up a notch and realizing that my father has this, I don't know - severely narcissistic personality - and I do mean to the point of taking it to a disorder. Where does the value of forgiveness and forgetting have a role there? Or with my ex-husband, when forgiveness is only a sign of weakness and an opportunity for more manipulation and abuse? But they say, peace isn't achieved until forgiveness is. Yet all these people in the past really aren't who I need to forgive there is so much in the present that needs tending to - they were just examples for the analogy.However, once you've forgiven, lest you not forget - because fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, fool me a third and I'm just a fool. And although this blog may not make a lot of sense to a lot of people...mine are never meant to do so, if you do get something out of it...HURRAY! If not, just shake your head in confusion....

cause I'm the fool.