It’s well a documented phenomenon that as people grow older, their left-leaning beliefs start to skew rightward. The ideals they held dear as kids become muddled and seem more like flights of fancy than values to live by. I used to see the world in very black and white terms: actions and beliefs were either right or wrong. I think as kids our worlds are so small that it seems simple to define the things that happen to us, to compartmentalize them into digestible tidbits with vague titles like “good” and “bad.” But the older I get, the harder it becomes to divide and parse things so clearly. Feelings and actions have dimensions that I somehow missed before. Now I see that everything — relationships, motives, desires — is just way more complicated. This grayness, this in-between-ness, makes it much easier to fathom forgiveness, compassion, empathy.
My mother is combing through her life and forgiving the people that hurt her. I don’t necessarily agree with it, but I understand why she feels it’s necessary. When we are young, passion is embarrassingly overemployed, but anger grows dull over the years. It becomes a lot easier to go back on statements like, “I would never do that” or “I’m never speaking to her again” because time distorts how you feel. I think that “never” has a shelf date of about 10 years before it starts to eat at you. But, like my mother, I’ve always been weak in that department. Forgiveness flows from me water-easy. I’m incapable of holding a grudge. I’ve only cut a handful of people out of my life, but they still send me e-mails to tell me how they’re doing. I do my best not to answer them back.
When I think about how many iterations of self we go through, how many skins we shed only to don bright new ones, it’s much easier to forgive people. Ten years ago I was only 13. Since then I have lived in four different cities and had six different haircuts and been an “anarchist” and a “hippie” and a “prep.” I’ve hurt my knees and my heart and cried on street corners and in movie theaters and every single year I’ve thought, “This one will be different.” And it was. It was always different. I was always different. If everyone changes as much as I have, in ways as small as a haircut and as big as the way your heart maneuvers, then maybe every once and awhile, when the light aims just right, we should give each other a fresh start.