“You’re going to forgive him, aren’t you?”

I could hear the disdain in her voice.

Like so many people who have walked through this pain alongside me, her instinct was not judgment – it was protection. She was trying to protect me from myself. Protect me from reopening wounds that barely closed. Protect me from extending grace to someone she believes no longer deserves access to it.

Looking out the window, I answered with complete honesty.

“I’m trying.”

The silence that followed was thick. Then came the audible huff of frustration.

And honestly? I understood it.

Because from the outside, forgiveness can sometimes look a lot like weakness. Like surrender. Like allowing someone to escape accountability for the damage they caused.

But that wasn’t what this was.

“I have never…” I paused, choking on words too small for the magnitude of what I was trying to explain. “This hurt… this deep pain… this anger… this cannot be my existence.”

Tears blurred my vision as I looked over at her.

“I am dying inside. The love that I carry is being buried under pain, betrayal, disgust, and hate.” I wiped at my face, exhausted by my own emotions. “I may never know what I need to know but I know. I can’t live like this anymore.”

Then quietly, almost reluctantly, I said the words out loud.

“I have to forgive him.”

I walked out of a building and looked up.

And there he was.

The pain hit me so violently it almost felt physical.

I had known it was possible our paths would cross. I knew this was part of the reality now – the constant awareness, the scanning rooms, the mental calculations, the preparation before entering spaces that once felt safe.

But knowing something intellectually and experiencing it emotionally are two completely different things.

It felt like being punched in the stomach, stabbed in the heart, and slapped across the face all at once.

I immediately tried to get away.

I walked as quickly as I could, painfully aware of his presence behind me. Every instinct in my body screamed to escape. To get out. To create distance before the emotions swallowed me whole.

By the time I got to my car, I could already feel the wave building inside my chest.

I started driving.

Then I turned the corner – and there he was again.

Directly in front of me.

I physically turned my face because I could not bear to look at him. My expression betrayed everything I was trying to contain. Hurt. Anger. Disgust. Grief. The kind of grief that reshapes a person from the inside out.

And I spent the entire drive home crying angry tears.

“Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

— Misattributed to Buddha, but a quote that has followed me for nearly thirty years.

I first heard it in Bible college during conversations about forgiveness, healing, and emotional maturity. It became one of those principles I genuinely tried to live by.

And truthfully, over the years, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to practice it.

I have forgiven betrayal.
I have forgiven abandonment.
I have forgiven cruelty.
I have forgiven misunderstandings, failures, and wounds I probably should have talked about more openly.

Forgiveness was never unfamiliar to me.

But this?

This feels different.

Because just when I thought I had finally found steady ground, the pieces of the puzzle shifted. New realizations surfaced. Things connected in ways I hadn’t fully understood before.

And suddenly, the wind was knocked completely out of my sails.

I don’t know that I have ever had my capacity for love and kindness tested the way it is being tested right now.

“Forgiveness is more than just for him,” I said quietly one afternoon, tearing apart a napkin between nervous fingers.

“It’s self-preservation.”

I took a deep breath before continuing.

“I will not survive another year like this. I am already trapped in enough ways. I cannot continue living in an emotional prison too.”

And I need people to understand this clearly:

Forgiveness does not mean blindness.

I know the cruelty.
I know the manipulation.
I know the pain.
I know what was done, what was allowed, what was ignored.

I know the years of it.

And still, every single time, I forgave.

Without hesitation.
Without conditions.
Because I cared deeply. Because I trusted deeply. Because I believed I understood the heart of the person standing in front of me.

I thought I knew what I was holding onto.”

I looked down at the shredded napkin in my hands.

“I just…”

“You love him,” she interrupted softly.

Not really a question.

More like a sad acknowledgment.

I paused for a second before answering with the only humor I could manage.

“I am invoking my Fifth Amendment right.”

And we both laughed – the kind of laugh that only exists when pain has exhausted everyone in the room.

Maybe that’s the hardest part about forgiveness.

People assume it arrives as a clean resolution. A finished process. A healed wound.

But sometimes forgiveness is messy.

Sometimes it is crying in your car.
Sometimes it is anger that still rises unexpectedly.
Sometimes it is grieving someone who is still alive.
Sometimes it is choosing, over and over again, not to let bitterness become your permanent identity.

Because that is the part I fear most.

Not the betrayal.
Not even the heartbreak.

But becoming someone hardened by it.

I do not want pain to have the final say over who I become.

And maybe forgiveness is not about pretending something didn’t destroy parts of you.

Maybe it’s choosing to believe those destroyed parts are still capable of rebuilding into something softer, wiser, freer, and whole again.

With all my love, xoxo J