Dear Renee,
I had to write a forgiveness letter for my final term paper in Speech. Tonight I will be turning it in and reading out loud in class. I wanted to share it with you:
Dear Renée,
I am on a healing journey and you are
my focus. I understand that you are me
and I am you. To get through this new
life I must forgive you.
I don’t think I ever remember a time
that I didn’t blame you for my life. You
were the reason I didn’t have the life I wanted. You were the reason I would lie to myself and
continue to do so. I let the
circumstances of my life take over and, because of this; I haven’t let myself live
my life to the fullest.
I’ve
punished myself in so many ways. I have
lied to myself. I have let myself do
things I never should have. I will not
write you about the situations I have put myself into or have done to myself
because you know them all. You were
there. You were there right next to me
as I hurt myself in so many ways. You
were the voice in my head telling me that I wasn’t good enough. You were the one always telling me I would never
be pretty enough. You were the low chant
in my head saying that I would never amount to anything. You were always telling me I was never going
to be enough and I would never love myself.
You made me feel guilty for wanting to get over everything in my life. You wanted me to be depressed and to feel
unworthy.
I did things in my youth that I am not
proud of just to prove that unworthiness.
You were always telling me that no one would ever love me because I was
only someone to be used and thrown away.
My life is so different now. I have a family. I have a daughter. I need to teach her to be the complete
opposite of whom I was and who you taught me to be. I try to implement the good in her every
chance I get. I tell her she is
beautiful. I let her now that she is
smart enough, worthy of love, and honored in this life. You never let me feel that. You made me feel guilty for ever feeling like
I could be any of those personality traits.
You made sure my self-worth would be at a steady zero and kept me there.
I forgive you, though. I know you didn’t grow up in safety. I know that you always felt ridiculed and
judged. I know you were taught to put
everyone before you and to never think of yourself as worthy to be put on a
pedestal. I know this wasn’t your
fault. This is the reason I forgive
you. This is the reason I am letting myself
teach my daughter everything I wasn’t.
In turn, I know that I am teaching us to do the same.
It’s not going to be easy -- this road
of reinvention. The first step is
forgiving and the next must be letting it all go. I need to let go of you and the idea of
you. I need to take the steps in knowing
how to love myself again. I need to go
back to that five-year-old and begin re-teaching her about whom she is and who
she will become. I’m not doing this for
you or for me. I am doing this for
us. I am slowly starting to forgive and
let go. It’s a long journey ahead, but
the destination will be worth it.
I am writing again. I am trying to accept compliments without
cringing. I am loving without the fear
of losing those that I love. I am
opening myself up and being brave. I am
a work in progress. There is one thing,
though, and I hope that you will take this step with me.
As I forgive you, I need you to
forgive me and let me go. I need for you
to give me the blessing of a happy life without you. A life not filled with regret, but one of a
lesson learned. I need a life of
discovery where we find each other again and leave the past behind us. Can you do that with me? Can we start to tell each other that we are
worthy of a good life? Can we take these
steps together to loving us again?
I want our goal to be this…that one
day we look into the mirror and not see disgust on the other end. I want us to be happy with whom we see, to be
thrilled with the ideas we get, to leave doubt in the past. I want us to be happy and to feel fulfilled.
I forgive you. I forgive me.
I forgive us.
Love,
Nay
