30 Days of Truth: Day 4

SOMETHING YOU HAVE TO FORGIVE SOMEONE ELSE FOR.

This one is kinda touchy for me because there are a plenty of people I've had to forgive. Ha ha, that sounds really bad. But a lot of big life molding events in which I've had to swallow my pride and forgive, however I don't feel the need to announce to the world what went down, who it was and what happened.  Call me old fashioned, but I'm not into airing other people's dirty laundry like that.  So perhaps the names and dates can be changed to protect the innocent?  Or maybe I can basically explain my method of forgiving.

Music.  I listen to a butt load of music.  And I seem to always find the songs that fit my situation and listen to them over and over again.  And cry.  A whole lot.  I'm a weeper, sissy la la cry cry girl! That's for sure.  And it takes time and space, but I get the job done.

Okay, okay, I know the rules.  So here is one situation where I've needed to forgive. When I was in college, I was, erm, raped.  Yikes.  That's too heavy a word for my little blog.  How about "taken advantage of" does that sound better?  Less depressing? Yeah, I thought not.  But yeah, it happened and it sucked and it took a really long time to be able to forgive, both myself and him.  Myself for being so stupid and him, well, for obvious reasons.  He was my boyfriend at the time.   He was so handsome and he was so smooth.  He was a flirt.  He was sleeping at my apartment because he had been evicted.  And he was drunk.  He was a convert to the LDS church too. Isn't that nice?  I totally trusted him because I thought hey, he chose the church!  He wanted to be in it!  So I let him stay with us and I justified it because I thought he had the same standards as me.  Boy was I off.   WAAYYYY off.

So it happened and I told a friend, who told me that I couldn't report it because we were in a "relationship."  And if you're in a relationship they can't do anything about it.  Stupid.  If only I'd known then what I know now, well, I wouldn't have let him stay for one!  But ugh it made life no bueno for awhile. And if only I had gone to the police, maybe I could have saved another girl from having to go through what I did.  Because there were more...I found out much later of course, but it sickens me that there were more.

I am stronger for it, I like to believe. I've had to go through shame and sadness and counseling and feeling sorry for myself and anger and down right hell.  I made some bad choices because of it and I've had to come back from all of it.  It's a lot to deal with when you're a tiny 19 year old.  I look back and I was a baby.  A BABY!  I had no idea about the world and the people in it!  I trusted people and gave them the benefit of the doubt.  And my parents taught me well and I should have listened to them!  But it, again, makes me who I am.  And I know that for all the crap that has happened in my short life, there has been double the joy.  So I am thankful for those hard times for making me love and appreciate the good ones.

And now that I have sufficiently depressed you for the evening, I'm off to bed.
Oh and PS don't you worry about me!  I'm good! I'm really good.  It's taken time, but I'm really, really good.