For the past few weeks, I've been trying to forgive people from my past who've hurt me. I've been reading Tiny Buddha, breathing, trying to be compassionate and understanding. And you know what? It hasn't done jack. I know you will think I am a horrible person for this, and I'm truly sorry, but I CAN'T do this. I've been trying to absorb myself in those oh-so-altruistic sayings: "Forgiveness is for the forgiver." "Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for it to kill your enemy." "Remember that we are all doing the best we can." I'm sorry, but none of this does anything to inspire me. I can barely like myself let alone like someone who royally screwed me over, so that first saying leaves me cold. Resentment... or memory? If I forgive and forget, it will be completely erased. What they did will be forgotten. And it shouldn't be! If they were truly cruel, that should be held against them forever. They deserve punishment. "We are all doing the best we can?" Um, no... we are NOT all doing the best we can, not when my job was taken from me and my supervisors never clearly explained why. Not when kids spat on me and shoved broken plastic cutlery into my sides on the frickin playground. Not when my mom still, STILL I tell you, refuses to own up to her mistakes. And I still have to talk to her -- how do you expect me to forgive and forget when I have to TALK to her every single week and she goes on and on, clearly never learning, EVER????????? Again, I realize how I sound... and the struggle with trying to do this is making me miserable. **** have I tried... I'm sorry