Trying to Forgive Myself

One of the things that keep us from moving forward in our lives is our attachment to the past.  I, for one, keep finding myself remembering something stupid or insensitive I did in the past and then beating myself up about it.

We cut our fellow humans a lot of slack for mistakes they’ve make in the past.  We’re often quick to offer platitudes like, “Well you’re human!  We all make mistakes.”  But then when it comes to mistakes I’ve made, I always feel like I should have known better or I should have been paying more attention to what was going on at the time of my stupid or insensitive actions.

It’s always been easier to forgive another’s mistakes than my own.

My Poor Parenting Skills

When I was a young father, and it was time for one of my kids to be placed in their crib for a nap, I’d lift them in and spend a few moments comforting them and reassuring them that, when they woke up, they’d be taken out of the crib and be allowed to resume their adventures.  I was also fairly strict about them demonstrating their disapproval of nap time by crying.  I was especially so on those days when they were tired and crabby.  If they put up a fuss, I’d lay them down once more, rub their back a bit and then close the bedroom door, especially if their caterwauling continued.  Usually, within a few minutes, they’d settle down and go to sleep.

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One afternoon, my usually cheerful daughter—at that time no more than a year old—was exhibiting some rather cranky behavior.  For reasons I do not recall, I was caring for her and her older brother that afternoon.  In those days, my idea of parenting was letting them play with toys on the floor while I lay on the couch and tried to watch TV.  If I had to interact with them, I did my best to feign delight in whatever game they were playing, while keeping an eye cocked toward the TV.

I was young and inexperienced and stupid.  I’m no longer young or inexperienced.  All in all, I was a bad father.  I probably should have been neutered at a young age, but, because there was no law against it, I became a father.  I have been blessed to be the father of three remarkable people without whom my life would be bereft of meaning.  Yes, no life lived here on Earth is wasted.  We all progress along our path in a direction commensurate with our spiritual evolution.  But there has been nothing I’ve done in my life that compares with the honor of being the father of these kids.  Well.  OK.  Being a grandfather is amazing, too!  But one event usually precedes the other, right?

Back to my parenting skills.   So, on this particular day, my daughter was tired and cranky so I put her in her crib for a nap.  She was not happy about it and let me know by crying.  After about three minutes, I went back to her room and she was standing in the crib, reaching to me to take her out.  I picked her up and, for a microsecond, she inhaled, thinking I was removing her from the crib.  Her screaming only grew louder when I laid her back down.  This occurred about three more times and I reached the limit of my tolerance.  I commanded her to go to sleep and I closed her bedroom door.

The crying continued.  I gritted my teeth and turned the TV louder.  My son tried to engage me in play, but my patience with him was short, too.  There was a momentary pause in the crying and I thought that I’d finally succeeded but, about a minute later, she began again in earnest.  More gritting of my teeth.  I’m sure I turned the TV even louder.  In our tiny little duplex, the quarters were close and the walls paper thin.

I struggled with the urge to go back into her room to scold her for not settling down to sleep.  I was determined to remain steadfast and not give in to her, but, after about a half hour I finally lost my temper and burst into her room, saying, “WENDY, SO HELP M—“

I was stopped in mid-scold by her pathetic, hollow eyes.  She had attempted to climb out of her crib on her own.  I’m sure it was during that one-minute lull in her crying about 30 minutes prior.  Somehow her foot was turned sideways in the bars.  As she sat there, the foot was trapped within the bars, at about the level of her head, and had been for probably a half-hour.  Tears streaked her face and her nose had run profusely.  She was leaning back on her two hands and she looked piteously up at me.  Her doleful eyes echoing the same thought that filled my head.  How could you allow this to happen?!

With a flick of my wrist, I dislodged her foot, lifted her and brought her back to the living room promising I’d never let that happen again and asking her to start thinking of the color sports car she’d like when she turned 16.

Whenever I start to feel good about myself, that event, or another, will sneak into my mind and I feel so badly about something from the past that all of my happiness evaporates immediately.  I have to fight to keep the memory, and others like it, from getting me down.

My Poor People Skills

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In my radio days, I was half of a highly popular morning radio team.  We spent at least one day per weekend making public appearances at some new business or another.  If you haven’t been to one, you have probably heard such a live event on your favorite station.  It amounts to nothing more than someone from the sales department convincing the business owner to shuck out some extra cash to promote their grand opening (or whatever) with a live appearance from my partner and me.  He and I would make a few extra bucks and we’d spend two to four hours at the business, doing live cut-ins on the air to extoll the services offered at the location and, sometimes, handing out free T-shirts or hot dogs or sodas or coupons or whatever.  Sends shivers up my spine just to recall it…

One hot afternoon we were at a recently-opened fast food place.  Luckily we got to be inside that day.  The broadcast went off without a hitch and in due time we were finished.  As the engineer was wrapping up cables and storing equipment, my partner and I were relaxing with a soft drink and talking with a few random customers who were telling us they were fans of our show.  All in all, very nice for the ego.

A young woman came up to us and asked us if we had any more of the free hats we’d been giving away.  I told her that they were gone more than an hour before.  I could immediately tell that she suffered from some type of mental impairment, however slight it might have been.  She responded to me by saying that she needed the hat.

I told her there were none left and she began to act a little panicky.

“But I rode my bike down here!”

“I’m sorry, miss, but there are no hats left.”

She was standing about ten feet from us and her voice grew louder.  She turned her attention to my partner.  “It is so hot outside!”

One of the first things I learned in my radio career was that people would clamor for free stuff to the point of obsession; with a desire for a crappy T-shirt or hat that bordered on downright greed.  So many people acted as if these cheap one-size-fits-all T-shirts and hats were like receiving a new car.  After a while, it would just push my buttons.  I answered for him.  “Look!  There’s nothing we can do!  All of the hats are gone!”

Her face dropped and tears suddenly trailed down her cheeks.  With exasperation twisting her entire body she cried, “But I will not be able to get home if I don’t have a hat!”

I had empathy for her pain.  Her face was red from having ridden her bike in the heat and her sweat-soaked clothing clung to her body.  But there was nothing I could do and she was bordering on causing a public disturbance.  It was just a stupid hat!  As I pondered to what level this would escalate and wondered how I would handle it, our salesman stepped forward.  With an exasperated sigh he snatched his hat from his head and handed it to her.

Her crying instantly stopped and relief showed on her face.  “Oh, thank you, sir!”  She exhaled with gratitude.  She smiled at him, then to my morning show partner and I.  With a look of near bliss, she placed her hat on her head and left the building.  Through the large windows of the restaurant, we watched her happily ride away.

The others shook their heads at the intensity and near explosiveness of the situation.  I, instead, stood and thought, “I have one of these stupid hats on my head…”

I’d had a million promotional items from these grand openings.  Bob and I had so many promotional T-shirts that, during one particular week, we actually showed up for our morning drive air shift wearing matching T-shirts four out of five of the days. (That’s our record.)

I felt mortified that I had been so used to thinking a particular way, it never occurred to me to offer my hat to the young woman.  It would have been the only time I ever wore that hat.  I would have tossed it into my trunk or into my closet and never given it another thought.  I felt worse because the woman was obviously impaired.  I felt worse because she was looking right at me, while I wore the stupid hat, and told her there weren’t any.  I felt worse because I was too stupid to realize all of that.

Hanging on to the Shame

That was probably 30 years ago, or so.  I can still see her face as she cried and Ron as he took the hat from his head and gave it to her.  How could I be so damned short-sighted?!

And, as I try every day to become a better person, memories like this pour back into my head.  Memories of mistakes I’ve made for which I feel so terribly.  And I cannot seem to forgive myself.  The past is gone.  We—I!—need to release the past, need to forgive mistakes, need to realize that the harm I caused, in most cases, was not intentional.

Our inability to release past shame and guilt is quite common.  It makes some of us want to either give up on ourselves and life, or seek something outside of ourselves to numb or distract us from our pain.  That’s how an addiction starts.  And you don’t have to be addicted to drugs or alcohol.  An addiction can be a habitual looking for something outside of ourselves to ease our pain, make ourselves feel better for however fleeting that moment may be.

One way to help with that is to realize that, at any given moment, we were only doing the best we could.  If we can get a grip on that, we can realize it’s our guilt and shame that chains us to the past.  So I must know that, in the past situations, I was only doing the best I could.  In doing so, I can release the shame and guilt I have for having made a mistake, and I can be a more Loving person.  The shame and guilt are within me, created by me.  Only I can release it and the releasing of it is the foundation of forgiveness.