I’ve been promising Alyssa a post for a long time, and I had another one that was going to go up, but then some things changed and something else took up all the space in my brain and so I’m writing a new one. This is it.
“Sometimes you have to let people think whatever they want. Their misconception is their problem and vindication isn’t always worth it.” - This is my current Facebook status. It was a really difficult thing to admit to myself, and even more difficult to live out. I am not the type to shy away from defamation of character. I’m pretty friggin awesome, didn’t you know??!
But for real. I handle criticism well, but only when it’s deserved. I know myself pretty well, and trust me when I tell you I know my faults, better than you think I do, and certainly better than anyone else. I wake up with them everyday, I battle them minute by minute, and I’m the one who has to live with the history my faults have created. So I promise you I know them. The really deep, ugly, unflattering ones too. I know them. So when someone criticizes one of my faults, I can usually own it, admit I’ve done whatever they’ve said I’ve done and apologize and promise to work harder at controlling the beast. Recently though, I had someone say, “hey you did this ten years ago and it’s been eating at me since and you are this way and this way and I have decided you’re not worth being friends with.”
Oh boy, how I can’t swallow that.
It is not my job to get you to confront me. There is no statute of limitations on you being angry with me for something I’ve done, but if you don’t tell me I’ve done something to hurt you, I may never know I need to apologize. It’s one thing to be angry at me for an offense, it’s entirely another to be angry at me for not apologizing for that offense when I didn’t realize I did it. If you were speeding and didn’t realize it, it’s still a crime. If, however, the cop doesn’t pull you over or give you a ticket, he can’t pull you into court for not paying the speeding ticket he never gave you. I hope that makes sense.
My other issue with this is that you cannot hold who I am now to who I was ten years ago. I have grown and changed and though there are things I will always battle, I am not the same person I was three years ago, let alone in high school. So often we all fall into the trap of boxing people in. We keep them defined as the person they were when we first met them, or the person they were when we were close to them, or lived near them, or whatever. We box them into a version of themself that most likely they grew out of. It’s not fair. Especially since the changing I’ve done has been all about the grace of God, the very changes I have undergone are a testament to what God has done in my life. Remember the blind man that Jesus healed by spitting in dirt and rubbing it on his eyes? What if, after he was healed and Jesus moved on, the people in the town put a blindfold on him and insisted he live the same life he had before that healing? We mute the grace of God when we don’t give people the chance to show us the new them, their new life.
And last, my pride is still too wild. Because, in my situation, a big part of why I received that kind of letter is insecurity and unhappiness on the part of the sender. And the parts that make that evident also make it evident that Letter Sender has been given some false information. And the worst, absolute WORST part of that is that I can prove it. I have been making myself crazy about this for days now. Absolutely crazy. Letting this go is going to be really difficult, I know that. But I also know that I can’t win. I’m certainly not being defeatist, I am being realistic, and honestly, being compassionate. To gain any kind of vindication here I would have to open cans of worms into other people’s relationships, and though I’d be in the right, and though I’d be telling the truth, it’s not my place to sow that kind of discord. Besides, at the end of the day Letter Sender is going to believe whatever they want about this situation, they are going to believe whatever will make them feel better, and whatever justifies their current life, no matter what I offer them to defend myself. So any fight at all will be an uphill battle, and any win will come at a cost it’s not my right to pay. So I have to let it go. And I have to be okay with that.
At the very least I can take away a few things:
1 - There are people in my life that I have boxed into who they were. I need to make that right.
2 - I need to be more conscious of what I do and say, because although I maintain my innocence in this particular instance, clearly you never know what you might do or say that could hurt the people around you. If you have beef with me please let me know. I deserve the chance to make it right with you, and you deserve an apology.
3 - I never want to do that thing where I take out my unhappiness on someone else by trying to steal their joy. I want to be happy for my friends happiness. If this isn’t how you feel, please let me know. I’m tired of protecting my joy from people who are supposed to bolster it and instead try to tear it down.
Heartbreakingly enough, for me, letting go effectively ends two very important relationships in my life. So, I'm sad. I hate trying to learn something when you're still sad over the educational catalyst.
