Flashback Blog: Forgiveness and Forgetfulness

A new year is an opportunity for a fresh start: resolutions, goals for improving self, and sundry other well-intentioned promises that we have no better chance of keeping than had we made them in mid-July. Personally, I’d rather avoid making resolutions altogether than make one I don’t trust myself to keep. However, I think this is a proper chance for me to “resolve” some mistakes from the past year. I’ve stepped on toes and put my foot in my mouth as much as any man, but 2008 was in many ways a banner year for yours truly. The new year seems like as good a time as any to go back and apologize for those infractions I’ve let slide to this point. It’ll help me head into 2009 with a clearer conscience.

Thing is, I’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and I don’t want to turn this into an exercise in awkwardness. No sense belaboring the point, especially since many of the people I’ve wronged have likely forgotten about the transgression anyway—or failing that, have learned to turn a deaf ear to my insipid comments and general tomfoolery.

So I’ve decided to mail out apology cards to those I’ve wronged this past year. And, in an effort to keep the exercise thoughtful yet light-hearted, I’m modeling them after a poem I read in literature class a few years back. See if you remember this gem from William Carlos Williams:

This Is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
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It’s simple. It’s elegant. I don’t know that it rightly qualifies as a poem, but it serves the purpose. Critics tend to look past the basic scene and question the speaker's tone. Is it sincere remorse, or is it a vindictive, backhanded swipe at a housemate? Bah. The point is, the speaker made an effort to rebuild a bridge between himself and the owner of the plums. That’s really all you can ask of him, and all I’m trying to do.

For any who may be inspired to try something similar, here’s a sneak peak at a few of my apology cards:


To my roommate Jay,

I have eaten the frozen beef burritos that you were probably saving for lunch, dinner, or possibly breakfast. Please forgive me. I was hungry and didn't have time to go to the store before my television show started. The burritos weren't impressive. Very cardboard-y. Please get a different brand next time.
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To my friend Michael,

Please forgive me for stealing your car while you were at the movies—a car which, I now realize, you were intending to use to get home. It was fun to drive and cornered well. I hope your date went ok otherwise.
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To my coworker Katie,

In retrospect, it was wrong of me to frame you for dinging the boss’s car in the parking lot. But you are an invaluable member of the staff, and for me it might be the last straw. I am sorry. If it makes you feel any better, it was quite a hassle for me to find the touch-up paint matching your car to apply to his door. As a peace offering, I’ll let you have the rest of the bottle to fix the area on your car where I hacked it with a chisel.
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To the kid I encountered on the beach in July,

I am sorry for mercilessly kicking down the sandcastle you were building. Your hitting me with sand was an accident, and I'd had a bad week. I had no right to subject you to frustrations that should have been directed at my boss, my mechanic, the IRS, public radio, AOL Time Warner, Jake Delhomme, that man at the post office that cut in front of me and wouldn't admit it, the management at my apartment complex, Greg Biffle, that rude telephone customer service agent for Capital One, the State Tourism Board (defacing a public monument, my foot!), the local weatherman, and that pompous scalawag that calls himself the chairperson of the South Carolina Midlands Gardening Club. I was angry at them, not you. I will return your wake board if you give me an address to mail it, and I will even throw in a toy pail and shovel to replace the ones I hurled into the ocean. I feel really bad for making your sister cry. Sometimes grownups throw tantrums, too. Don't be like me.
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Wow. I haven’t even mailed the cards, and I feel better already. I suppose that even I, like the speaker from Williams' poem, could always improve my reconciliation skills. To be honest, I can't say which is harder: asking for forgiveness or giving it. The first requires swallowing a lot of pride, and the latter takes persistent effort. In Matthew 18:21-22, someone asks Jesus if he should forgive his brother 7 times. Jesus replied he should forgive him 70 times 7, which I always interpreted as a Biblical way of saying some outrageously large number (translation: "gajillion"). I'm learning that can mean someone who commits a gajillion transgressions, 490 personal insults, or even 2 unkind words on one thoughtless occasion. If necessary, you have to forgive those two words a gajillion times.

I'll confess I've gotten angry just remembering things that people did or said to me years ago—stuff I'd forgiven them for. It shakes me to know that such things can even still bother me. On the flip side, I know things I've said and done in the past that are still sore spots for the people I hurt, even though I’ve been forgiven. Until I figure out how to permanently forget things that I've forgiven, I have to forgive again, and again, each time it creeps back into my mind—and hope I'm shown similar mercy.

After all, sandcastles and cars and frozen burritoes can be replaced. It's the words that stick like splinters.