Why is it when we are hurt emotionally we always want the one that hurt us to pay exponentially? Why is it that as adults we have to react as children when we feel slighted, hoping something bad happens to the person who in our mind did grievous harm to our heart and psyche? As a human being and a man, that is something I have wrestled with all my life. For some reason I have felt I would feel better if the person who hurt me, hurt just as bad if not worse. I have realized how childish and boorish this kind of behavior is. How these thoughts can stain your soul and damage your heart and psyche further.
When I first found myself in the position I am in I wanted my pound of flesh from the perpetrators. I wanted those responsible to pay, I wanted them to hurt and I wanted to be able to see the results of the damage. That was one of the hardest things I had to get over. You see, I was making this whole situation about me. It did not involve anyone else. I assumed I was the only one hurting by this. After all, I had done nothing to deserve what was happening to me. However, the reality is there is more than one side to every story. More than one way to perceive the way things are and we all know perception is reality. I had a role in this. I am not innocent. It took a while to realize and accept that. I own some of the responsibility for where I am today. I cannot blame anyone else. Blame serves no purpose.
Acceptance, they talk about it in every twelve step program. One has to accept things as they are and the Serenity Prayer speaks to this. I have to learn to accept that it is rarely if ever all about me. Sometimes it is about me and then it usually isn’t that big of a deal. My point being the others involved in my circumstances have their reasons, needs and wants that have nothing to with me. My part in their life is over for the most part. Obviously I no longer have a role to fill. It is with this in mind that I have to remind myself of the needs of others and the small role I may play in lives of those around me and I need to realize when that role has ended.
I have a place in this world. I have children to raise, a job and profession to maintain. Somewhere out there are more friends to meet and perhaps someone to love again as deeply, or more so that I have ever loved before. That is the beauty part of starting over. The new chapters, the new people that come into our lives and yes, the new love. We can love again. We are human and as such are wired to be able to love deeply more than once in our lives. I look forward to that and I look forward to it with the new found wisdom and knowledge I have gained starting over, over 50.
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