The Unforgiven

It's not that I don't forgive my parents, or that I couldn't, it's that they haven't asked for forgiveness. They haven't acknowledged the role that each of them played, or the ways in which they couldn't see me or protect me as a child. Then again, they still can't see me, which is I'm sure part and parcel of why they haven't asked for forgiveness.

I heard this song on the radio this morning on the way home from practice:

New blood joins this earth,
And quickly he's subdued.
Through constant pained disgrace
The young boy learns their rules.

Yep, and so did this young girl...

With time the child draws in.
This whipping boy done wrong.
Deprived of all his thoughts
The young man struggles on and on he's known
A vow unto his own,
That never from this day
His will they'll take away.

It's true. I see this in myself and I see this in my boyfriend. This part of us that our parents couldn't destroy:

What I've felt,
What I've known
Never shined through in what I've shown.
Never be.
Never see.
Won't see what might have been.

I went through a long stage where I wished it was otherwise -- all of it -- but now I'm not concerned with what might have been. I'm concerned with what was, and what is:

What I've felt,
What I've known
Never shined through in what I've shown.
Never free.
Never me.
So I dub thee unforgiven.

It took a lot -- a whole hell of a lot -- for me to find the freedom in my body that I enjoy today. I didn't have that freedom as a child, or as a young woman. It's a lot to forgive, but I know I'm good for it. If they would only ask...