Does Anyone Know How to Let It Go?

On forgiveness, old wounds, two-step verification, and the people who don’t even say goodbye.

I’ve been on a bit of a writing hiatus. Actually, I’ve been on an everything hiatus, because I have had absolutely no energy left after coughing, sneezing, and blowing my nose every waking minute. Add in the sleep disruption from uncontrollable coughing and the feral Crackhead, and honestly, I am not exactly operating at peak spiritual enlightenment over here. But a lot has been going on in my head.

I’ve had several text and phone conversations with my Dad lately, which is nice, but also strange. My Dad has not really “been there” for me since I was about six years old. And now he’s texting me telling me to go to the ER. Telling me to forgive people. Asking me how to cook a grilled cheese. It feels like he is a different person now that June is gone.

I know he really, really misses her. I know she was his life. She took care of him. She was his intermediary with everyone else. She was the one who texted me, asked me questions, checked in, and then I’m sure she shared everything with him. Maybe he thought that was enough. Maybe he thought getting updates about me secondhand meant he was still connected to me. But now she isn’t here, so he has to speak to me directly.

And the strangest part is, I am realizing I may know him better now than I ever did before. We are more alike than I expected. Scarily alike, actually. The difference is that I have been trying very hard not to disappear anymore. I have been getting better at saying things. Calling things what they are. Refusing to be erased just because it makes everyone else more comfortable. Although I will admit, disappearing still has its appeal sometimes. Put life on autopilot. Let someone else steer the ship. Zone out. Don’t feel it. Don’t fight it. Don’t make waves. But that is not what my heart wants anymore.

I read The Alchemist a few months ago, and since then I keep coming back to that question: What does my heart want? Then I read a post by Lisa Whelchel about learning to receive unconditional love, not just believe in it, and she wrote about the moment her heart “started rebelling” after years of being put in time out. That stayed with me, because I think mine has been doing the same thing. Rebelling. Talking back. Refusing to stay quiet just because quiet is easier for everyone else.

Not what does everyone expect from me. Not what will make everyone comfortable. Not what version of me is easiest for other people to tolerate. What does my heart want?

I’ve always believed in God and Jesus, but after my experience with the cult, I have been very wary of organized religion. I do not know how to relax into faith. I try too hard to become whatever I think God, Jesus, the church, or the people in the room want me to be. I don’t naturally rest in grace. I start checking myself for mistakes. Am I doing this wrong? Am I failing? Is God mad at me?

I was never really taught grace. Not by my parents. Definitely not by religion. Not by life, really. So cutting myself slack was never something I knew how to do. I was always trying to become whatever I thought I needed to be. And it was never enough.

Looking back, I don’t think that had as much to do with God as it had to do with human relationships. Losing my mother when I was four. Being treated unkindly by my stepmother. Being ignored by my Dad. Kids being mean to me in school. So much of my life became about figuring out how to make people be nice to me. Not even like me necessarily. Just please don’t be mean to me, because I can’t handle that.

That is how I became a people pleaser. A chameleon. Everybody’s buddy. The nice one. The funny one. The one who could read a room and become whatever the room required. Only a few people really got to see me angry. And more than one person has told me that when I get angry, it is like a dark cloud rolls in. That is probably because there is only so long you can bite your tongue before you chew it off.

Today my Dad texted me: “Set your heart on the future as the past is gone. Look to your future life and what it can be. I’m in that position, we can’t get a do over card.” And I know he’s right. I know Jesus wants me to forgive and move on with my life. I know, in my heart, that what happened was probably for the best. But none of that magically makes me less pissed off about how I was treated. That is the part I do not know how to reconcile. How do you forgive something you are still angry about? How do you move on from something that still feels like it stole something from you?

I had fifteen years at one company. Fifteen years of showing up. Fifteen years of doing my job. From my point of view, doing it well. And then a group of people I trusted helped push me out. No chance to do better. No severance package. No extended benefits. Eleven days’ notice. One real goodbye. Unless you count the knives in my back as goodbyes, then I had at least five knives and one goodbye.

And I know everyone has heard this before. I am sick of hearing it and even more sick of feeling it. But starting over after fifteen years is not nothing. It means proving yourself all over again. It means learning the unwritten rules of a whole new corporation. It means starting with the same amount of PTO as someone fresh out of college. It means smiling and being grateful, even when some part of you is still standing in the wreckage thinking, Wait, what the hell just happened?

My brother-in-law has been at the same job for forty years. The company changed names, changed ownership, merged, shifted, and evolved at least ten times, but he kept his tenure. Last week he was offered an early retirement package. A good one. The kind you earn after decades of loyalty. Honestly, he truly deserves it. He has been through so many rounds of layoffs he should get a bonus for not having a nervous breakdown. But of course, it had me thinking about my old company again. Fifteen years, and you couldn’t offer me anything? Not even a real thank you? Not even a goodbye?

On top of it, the universe keeps handing me stupid little reminders of what he took away from me. When I finally, after many months, understood what was happening, I bought a personal cell phone again. I had transferred my personal number, the one I’d had for eight years, to my company phone when I started working for Chuck. At the time, it made sense. I didn’t want to carry two phones, and I was not exactly worried about anyone tracking how many hours I played Clash of Clans or how many dog pictures I posted on Instagram.

But now everything wants two-step verification. Every time I try to log in to some random account, it wants to send a code to that old number. So yes, I have a fresh reason to say Fuck you, Chuck, practically every day. This has not been a helpful development in my spiritual journey toward letting go.

I know my former boss probably did not set out to make me lose my job. I know he probably feels bad about how it ended. But I also know he wanted someone else in my role, and moving me out of it helped make that happen. The timing did the rest. And that is what still gets me. I had his back for seven years. I went to his birthday party. I bought him a clock in Maui. I knew the people he turned against me longer than he did. And he did not even say goodbye.

So yes, Dad, I know the past is gone. But apparently my nervous system did not get the memo. I want to forgive. I really do. I know I have been forgiven for things I did not deserve forgiveness for. I know I do not get to receive grace and then refuse to extend it to anyone else. But I also think forgiveness has been badly explained to people like me.

Because for a long time, I thought forgiveness meant pretending it didn’t hurt. Pretending it didn’t matter. Pretending the people who harmed you had good intentions, or were just doing their best, or didn’t know any better. Maybe sometimes they didn’t. But sometimes they did. They definitely did.

And maybe forgiveness is not saying, “It’s fine.” Maybe forgiveness is saying, “It was not fine, but I am done letting it own me.”

I am not there yet. I wish I were. I would love to be one of those peaceful, evolved people who can release resentment into the universe and drink herbal tea under a tree, surrounded by tea lights. Unfortunately, I am more of a cough-medicine-and-rage person at the moment.

But maybe this is where it starts. Not with pretending. Not with slapping a Bible verse over a wound and calling it healed. Not with letting people off the hook because anger makes everyone uncomfortable. Maybe it starts with telling the truth. I am hurt. I am angry. I was erased. I do not want to live there forever.

My Dad is right. We don’t get a do-over card. And maybe that is why I don’t want to spend the rest of my life begging the past to explain itself. Maybe my heart wants something quieter now. Not revenge. Not even an apology, although let’s be honest, I would not throw one back in anyone’s face, except maybe Chuck.

Maybe my heart just wants my life back. So if anyone knows how to let it the fuck go, please advise. Because I do not. But I think I’m finally willing to learn.