Some days you just take a survey to help a colleague out and well sometimes that survey changes you. You see that survey was on forgiveness and while taking it I had a big mofo head clobbering WTF is that moment. Yes, it was that big and really kind of screwed up, but I needed to forgive myself for something I had no control over.
I moved to Salt Lake City when I was 12 a perfectly normal preteen with a good sense of self and doing good on the self esteem when heading into the craziness of adolescence. I’d moved before, you make new friends at school, I was sure of this. But that all changed my first day of school. It has to be one of the most horrid and pivotal moments of my life. Turns out not being Mormon and the new kid in school was a very extremely bad thing to be. In fact I was going to Hell and had to explain Lutheranism to them. No one talked to me for a year and later on the one girl who wanted to be my friend told me they threatened to beat her up. Go social conformity.
Guess what I became, yeah, a non-conformist. I was not alone in this. I was a amongst the freaks of Salt Lake and I knew it and so did society, it’s kind of like a scent or something. I was not alone, you have no idea how comforting, oh wait you do, because everyone thinks they are alone in something. So I bet you do understand that comfort of not being the only one. I’m not going into details let’s just suffice to say it was pretty brutal at times interspersed with some really awesome times. It left scars on me I will carry forever.
What I realized taking that survey was I need to forgive me for living. I did not end up addicted to drugs and overdosing like some of my friends. I did not commit suicide to be done with the pain. I survived, somehow I made it through. Now I need to forgive me for living and making it out alive when so many intelligent and wonderful friends did not.
I forgive me for surviving. I am sorry that you died too soon. I love you all.
