“All there is left to do is forgive and forget you. So I wanna forgive you, and I wanna forget you” –Lauren Conrad
I was raised on the notion of: “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Aside from growing up to be a hell of a spitfire and an impulsively sarcastic asshole, this notion still holds true for me. Don’t get me wrong, every person has their limits (especially me lol), and I can be quite the guilty one of opening my mouth before I think sometimes, but I think something so important to remember, is where to invest your energy.
A few weeks ago, something pretty fuckin’ shitty happened to me, and by pretty fuckin’ shitty I mean I had a biggggg wakeup call on who I consider close friends of mine, ya know like the ones who DON’T intentionally hurt ya for the fuck of it. I’d love to get into details, but I really don’t feel like completely plastering my personal life on the internet for all to read, and I also don’t believe in reputation shaming, so I apologize if parts of this post seem to beat around the bush. Anyway- I was having a conversation about this whole situation with one of my friends, and their response to something I said resonated with me a little bit. We were talking about this person, and I had mentioned that regardless of how selfishly fucked up it was what they did, and how much it all left a bad taste in my mouth, I still wished this person the best. My friend replied kind of shocked and asked me why after all that hurt, I still had something good to say.
I’ve thought about this whole thing for a while and asked myself the same fucking question myself. Why? Why wish the best for someone that treated me like actual shit and really doesn’t deserve it?
I guess my answer is this: if not me, then who? If not now, then when? I guess I’ve realized lately that more than 90% of the time, the way people treat us has little to do with us at all honestly, and almost everything to do with them. I believe that people can only meet you as deeply as they’ve met themselves and that if a person doesn’t love and respect themselves, how the hell are they supposed to project any sort of love and respect onto other people? I believe it’s healthy to get anger out, to get your sadness out, to shout to the universe, to your friends, your family, god- all of the things that haven’t been easy or fair for you, but once you get all that anger out, once you get out all the sadness, it’s time to let it go. If we treat the people who treat us like shit the exact same way, the shitty people just get shittier, and so do we.
Wasting perfectly good energy on negative situations, negative people, or shitty things that happen to us only hurt us more in the long run. Don’t let other people’s actions dictate your feelings, just let it guide your energy, and who and what you should really be investing it in. I think it’s very easy to feel resentment towards life when we get hurt, it’s easy to shut everyone out, to turn cold, and to put yourself in a box to stay safe, I have been guilty of this more times than I’d care to admit. Let me tell you though, that all in all, you should never let a man or woman ever pull you low enough to hate them; hating someone gives them power, it gives them relevancy, and it pours gasoline on fires that should never have been lit in the first place. Continue to cross oceans for people even if they can only jump puddles for you, continue to love, to care, to be there for yourself and for the people you give a shit about, forgive yourself for all the things you think were your fault (cause they weren’t) and most importantly, accept the apologies you will probably never get and move the fuck on.
Sometimes silence is all people deserve from us anymore and that’s okay, we can still wish people the best without wanting them in our lives or really anything to do with them at all, lol.
Be good to people, even the shitty ones, you’ll sleep better.
xoxo
Carlie Bradshaw
Sex & The Suburbs 