Past Haunts

Ok, so I thought that I could just keep it to myself but alas no ... it was not to be. I'm going to give a pretext/backgrounder before I launch into my tirade and hopefully it won't be too boring. My very first boyfriend, Brian* (*name has been changed to protect privacy), in college and I dated for a grand total of 4 months. 4 months? You ask. Yes, 4 months. At the start of the 4th month, I went home for Christmas break for 3 weeks and he took it upon himself to cheat on me with another girl attending our University. When I came back from break I promptly noticed the difference in him and he even had the audacity to bring the "other" girl over to meet me at his apartment. I can't believe he was surprised when we started talking and found out that we were both dating the SAME guy. Isn't the first cardinal rule of cheating that you should NOT bring the 2 girls around eachother?! Maybe he was banking on "hiding in plain sight". Clearly, it didn't work. Anyways, I broke up with him and he continued to date the "other" girl who shall be remembered as "bowling pin". If you hadn't noticed, I have the tendency to nickname people I don't like with characters or inanimate objects that they tend to resemble in my opinion. So post-breakup I didn't speak to him for roughly 6 months. But he was my bestfriend's roommate so eventually at some point we started talking again. I was OK with being friends with him so long as he didn't bring "bowling pin" around me. It was a few years later and he came over to hang out at my place in Westminster and he had broken up with "bowling pin" at this point and he wanted to play with my violin. Well, if you know me, you know that I treasure my violin greatly! It's my heart and soul, because I love music, I love to sing, play instruments, dance, etc. I love things that are musically artistic. Well, he was playing with the violin and in short, ended up dropping my violin despite my desperate warnings to "please be careful!" with the violin. Now, of course when the violin hit the floor, it felt like someone had knocked the breath out of me. I was, naturally, quite angry with him and ended up raising my voice at him. But because I raised my voice at him he had the audacity to be upset with ME even though he dropped MY violin! So then we didn't speak again for a weeks while I stewed, this is strike 2, by the way, for him.

The 3rd strike against him was when I went out to visit him in Palm Springs, CA. I drove several hours to hang out with him and when I got there HE decided that HE should drive MY car that just made the trek out to his place. Not only did he drive my car around, he used MY car with me in it, to run errands for HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND!!!! Then when he was getting in the car he slammed the door. I was highly affronted at this point and could no longer hold my tongue and lashed out in protest! I asked him to not slam my car door to which he replied that he had not done so. But it's MY car and I felt that he had slammed my door so what he should have done was explain that he felt he hadn't slammed my car door but that he recognized that I had felt he had so he was sorry for that and all would have solved. But no, he was determined that he had not slammed my car door and that he was not sorry for it, as a matter of fact he proceeded to slam my door again as he was getting out of the car. I promptly, at that point, made up my mind that he clearly did not respect ME as he did not respect my things as an extension of me.

1. He CHEATED on me!
2. He DROPPED my violin!
3. He SLAMMED my car door and wouldn't respect my wishes!

YYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRR OOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUTTTT!!!!!!!!!!! I decided that I couldn't be friends with someone who absolutely had no regard for my feelings. He had wronged me too often, too many times. I feel like I'm a very forgiving person, but I also felt that I was not about to sit around and take this sort of abuse from a so-called "friend". I drove away from Palm Springs that day angrily and set in my mind, that I would never speak to him again. I even deleted his number from my phone, as I sped home. I never looked back. This was March 2006.

~FAST FORWARD 2 YEARS LATER, NOW LIVING IN NYC~

On February 8th, 2008 I receive a letter from Brian*, it reads:

"Hello… you know, I’ve been wanting to write you this e-mail since the beginning of the year and sometimes because I get too busy and some others because I just can’t find the right words to tell you this… I just haven’t gotten myself to write this. Well finally here I am. I honestly don’t know how to begin… we haven’t talked in such a long time … that it feels weird writing you a message. You know I have never been too big on words specially when it come to apologizing but here I am trying to do just that.. (doesn’t this feel weird) well.. honestly I don’t know what you think about the way things ended the last time we talked. Ever since it happened I’ve been trying to figure out what exactly happened that day and I still can’t figure it out. I know I’ve hurt you in the past and I know that this letter might not mean too much to you but I honestly want to apologize for everything I’ve done to you. Even the littlest things or maybe the big things that seemed little to me but obviously were very important for you. You’re going to find a lot of mistakes (grammatically) on this letter but I honestly don’t want to proofread it. I want it to come from the heart and not have to make any changes because something “doesn’t sound good” Well, pretty much I just want to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the way things got between us, for the way I sometimes treated you, for the way things ended but mostly I’m sorry for not being the good friend you wanted me to be. I know you have moved on and honestly and truthfully I’m not expecting a reply. I just wanted you to know how I feel. Take care of yourself Sherry."

I've long since forgotten Brian* and how he had wronged me. I've found Christ since then and accepted him into my life as my LORD and SAVIOR. One of the tenets that a Christian is bound to do is to forgive and forget. To love those who love you and love those who have wronged you equally. Can you imagine my surprise when I received THIS email?! Shock doesn't begin to describe how I felt. I'm now happily in a relationship, with a man who I genuinely enjoy being around; who has not cheated on me nor disrespected me. It was strange to receive this email and even stranger when I realized that I could not bring myself to share this with my current boyfriend. I also realized that while I wanted to reply and say something to Brian*, no words could be found. No words, still, have been found. What do you say to someone who has caused you so much pain and suffering and is now writing you a letter of apology for all the wrongs he has ever committed against you? It's like finally receiving closure, but not at the same time, if that's possible. I've sent out distress calls to my most trusted friends and hopefully they'll help me come up with a game plan, but if you're reading this and you have a suggestion, I would be welcome to it. If you got a story to share, send it to me and I'll post it too! Let's babble about life together!