Confessing

While reading a book, I realized there was this thing that I had honestly been beating myself up for for years.

I thought about how it came up years after it occurred. The depth of the jerk that I had been. And searching my mind on ways, things I could do that would make me *feel* absolved of this. Merely confessing seemed completely inadequate to the damage I had done.

I considered restitution.

It wasn't a money sort of damage that I had done. And I suspected the people involved might be more annoyed that I even went back to that time and place than grateful for a heartfelt apology. We have all done what normal people do: move on.

When someone apologizes, it is sort of hard. It puts the recipient of the apology back into the unpleasant memory of having a wrong done to them, and then having to say "that's alright" or be a jerk.

Plus, when we are talking old relationships, trotting out this garbage seems really backwards-moving.

What can be done for the person who has done the wrong to put it behind them?

I apologize every time I remember that situation. I don't bury it or hide it. I have learned that I have to be nice to people because, due to some mental or genetic defect, I never let myself forget when I have been a jerk to good kind people who have cared for me.

I have to believe that God has let me off the hook for this a long time ago. Since I can't go back, I have to move forward and avoid making this mistake again, and continue confessing until it is etched over the memory of me being a jerk.