Day 04 Something you have to forgive someone for

I'm trying to get back on track, but with my trip coming up I will likely fall behind, so please bare with me.

I can say that I don't often hold grudges.  I will be the first to pick up the phone to call and end a fight, or the first to "kiss and make up" but there is a grudge I have been holding onto for a while now and I need to let it go.  Not for them, but for my own mental and emotional well being.

I spoke earlier of toxic relationships.  I have had many over the course of my life.  One relationship I can honestly tell you is NOT my relationship with Curt.  There were boyfriends before him that were, but mostly it is my friendships that become toxic.  Some even start out toxic and I don't even realize it.  

This particular friendship, if you can call it that, was just one of those.  From the very beginning it was beyond toxic, but I could never see it.  I was friends with this person for over 4 years.  Our families did nearly everything together.  To the point that we moved in across the street from these people, at my insistence.  I had every "logical" reason in the book for buying a house across the street.  Let me just tell you that nothing is truly "logical" when someone else is actually making your decisions for you and making you think you're making them.  I digress, hindsight is 20/20 and I need to move on.

During the course of this "friendship" I was often used, demeaned, and taken advantage of as was my family.  Unfortunately I was blind to it.  I continued to allow it to happen, to allow us all to be abused to a point where Curt could no longer stand to be near any of them.  Anyone that knows my husband knows that he, like me, will tolerate a LOT of crap before he will put his foot down, so this was not a good sign.  

What you may not know is that Curt worked for this "friends" husband, who was becoming nearly as toxic as his wife.  After years of putting up with his and other people's crap, Curt had had enough, and well most of you know where we are now.  Curt is about to graduate BCT for the US Army, and I couldn't be more proud of my husband.

However, I need to find it in me to forgive the family that was and still is so toxic to mine.  I said before I have to forgive myself, and that's for allowing them into our lives, and now I need to forgive them for being so toxic.  As I said above, I'm not doing it for their sake.  They can continue the dirty looks as I go to get my husband's letters from the mailbox across the street from their house, I will simply smile, because we are the bigger family.  We made the decision to rid ourselves of the toxic mess.  So I will forgive them for all the hell they put us through over 4+ years so that we can move on with our lives with a clean slate and a clear conscious.  

For this I will be happy to forgive and forget.  I have no need to be reminded of the toxicness.