((((((((Beth))))))))
I'm not sure what would help you feel better. Or if that is the goal here. My thoughts are a little bit different.
There's two things that come to mind. One is that: Everyone has something in common on something like this. Everyone probably looks to the past and wishes they had been a different person, a better person, the best self they could have been. I know I wish this very much so, especially in regard to the kind of mother I should have been. I was going to say could have been, but that is really not true. I had no tools. I was so very ignorant and un-capable back then. That is something that can be improved upon, but not something that can be fixed. For me, even the idea that I improved and continue to improve, isn't enough. Forgiveness helps but can't be required, you know? Well, you get the idea.
Carolyn helped me before with her ideas on being re-born and how we can become new again. I came up with a way that it was do-able for me. Perhaps she will chime in here with what she means by becoming new again. It helped me a lot and continues to help me when I have these really yucky feelings.
Secondly, the part about being mean to others. I have meanness in me just like everyone else. But I spent much time as a child and teen being a victim. I have had times when I "met up" with the people who hurt me. I would say the one thing I truly don't want is some kind of apology from them. What I have wanted is truth. A conversation perhaps. I think that those relationships are broken. And I'm not in any kind of place yet, and may never be, where I am interested in re-connecting with them. But to see the growth or imagine the growth, that is a good thing. To see that someone has softened and has become a better version of themselves is a real gift in my opinion.
I am different and I imagine they are too. Or I hope so. How different is a matter of chance or whatever.
I would say I am a big fan of pay it forward.
It is important that you see all the changes that are happening right now are leaving you open to this old pain.
Let's see. At my twenty year class reunion I saw a "tormentor". Her co-tormentor, the one I have always thought of as the ring leader, was deceased at that point in time. She looked at me very coldly and I thought, does she hold ME responsible for what happened? My life and my self were destroyed by them for awhile. What could she be thinking to look at me so coldly like that? Well, I shall never know.
At my twenty five year class reunion the topic of me fighting with boys in grade school came up. I used to kick the boys. I always thought I did that because they picked on me. Now I kind of think the two things kind of evolved at the same time. I think I was mean to the boys and kicked them because it felt powerful. And I was most powerless as a little girl, especially at home. When the one classmate brought it up to me, I said, cut me some slack, that was a rough neighborhood I grew up in. Meaning the one we both grew up in. And then he said, you're right and I apologize for any role I played in the way you were treated back then. I was blown away. Someone else acknowledged that I was indeed treated badly then. I hadn't imagined it. Funny enough, though, I never thought of him as a bully or ring leader. He just seemed like an equal to me. I have a mixture of memories where he did mean things or nice things and I did mean things and ran away a lot.
Then there was the time last year when I waited on a customer who I came to believe was the main ring leader in some of the worst taunting I received because he enlisted even kids I didn't know who didn't live in my neighborhood to taunt me in public. And he clearly remembered none of it. That was shocking to me.
I ran into him again a few weeks ago and he was as polite and friendly as could be. By then I had incorporated my feelings about that encounter from last year and I was able to be a "grown up" about it. So, I guess I am healing.
The point here with all this babbling--everyone has something like this. Both sides. People have been mean to me. I have been mean to others. We all operate from our current place in this journey. Growth and forgiveness are both desirable but not always possible. Yet life goes on. Do what you can for your own healing. That will make a difference as you go forward into the future.
Love, Juno (Pennyplant)
