Out of the Blue

An old college friend found me on Facebook this morning, a person I've thought about more than once in the years since our paths diverged in Idaho. She wanted to apologize for some wrong she thought she'd done me all those years ago, so I quickly wrote back to assure her that the past was the past and long since forgotten. Truth be told, I can't for the life of me remember why I was so angry with her back then. (Though, since we're telling the truth, I do remember being really, really angry.)

I'm glad to know that she went on from college to live a happy life. As I recall, neither of us were particularly happy people at that point--probably for different reasons, but in my case I know the problem began and ended with the feeling that I wasn't a person of any merit. I did a lot of stupid, dangerous things as a result of that feeling, and it's nothing short of a miracle that I'm still here to tell the tale. But I've always believed that things happen for a reason, which means there's a reason why I'm still here and why I took the path that brought me to this moment.

When I was younger, I hated the story of the Prodigal Son--the story of the kid who screws up and comes home to find that he's already been forgiven. I was the good kid in my family, sandwiched in between a rebellious older sister and a younger brother who, as my dad would put it, was "a typical boy." That means he got into some trouble along the way, but no more than expected. (When my kids were little and my son was acting up, my dad would say "Leave him alone--he's just being a boy." If my daughter was doing the same thing, he'd give me the hairy eyeball until I intervened. And now you know why I wound up teaching Women's Studies.)

So I always hated the Prodigal Son, because it seemed to me to be one more example of the good kid being overlooked and the bad kid getting all the attention. We all know that isn't fair.

What I didn't know, as a young person, is how often I would need to be forgiven myself, and how grateful I would be that people have the capacity to forgive each other. And ourselves. After I left home for college, I quickly gave up on being the good kid--so I'm still working on that last item. I have many current shortcomings, but many more memories of times I knowingly made the wrong choice. Giving myself a break is sometimes not an easy job.

But it's easy to forgive the people who hurt me a long time ago, especially if time has proven those hurts to be so inconsequential that they don't even live on in memory.

So welcome back, my old friend. It's wonderful to hear from you.