Saturday, November 9, 2013

Tangled Emotions

An addicted family member who’s taken advantage of my generosity on more than one occasion tells another family member how sorry he is. That he wants to apologize one more time but is afraid of my reaction.

And when I hear of it I have tangled emotions. As someone in recovery, I believe in forgiveness, of letting go, of washing what he’s done from my memory.

And mostly I have, because I never think of the money he’s taken. In fact, I don’t care about it because it won’t change my life one way or another.

But the serious damage he’s done is to our relationship, something that’ll be difficult to restore.

What’s been destroyed is respect and trust, those important building blocks of any relationship.

No matter how sincere the apology there’ll be that caveat in the recesses of my mind, wondering what’s next?. Whatever he says, how can I believe him?

My heart wants to believe that everyone’s sincere. Common sense says otherwise.

And when I share this with my sponsor he says listen to my common sense.