Even though our schedule is jam-packed at convention, I did have a little bit of time to check my email. When I checked this morning (I didn't check at all on Thursday, as it was a little liberating to think "Wow...I would just be looking at emails from friends, I don't have work emails to check!) I opened my inbox to find an email from a former coworker, this time someone from my group. While I have talked to two girls I worked in the same office with, those were people I trusted and confided in, and them me. The email was from one of the girls who I knew was stabbing me behind my back while I worked there, one of the girls I couldn't win with. If I was in a bad mood (which my bad moods are never really awful...I generally tell people "I'm sort of in a crabby mood today, so I apologize in advance...") she labeled me a bitch...if I was in a happy mood (my happy moods are pretty intense) she called me "bi-polar". I can confidently say that she called me these things because I saw an email where she used both of those terms while describing me.
So, I open her email, wondering what it might say. To give you the Cliff Notes version, it pretty much said "I hope you're doing okay. I miss you here and wanted you to know I'm sorry about the way things panned out" and a little more.
My first thought was "Seriously? Does she honestly think I believe any of this?!" then my second thought was "Well, maybe she does feel bad...maybe she does miss me at work...".
Here's the problem with things like this: it's impossible to know the full truth. Sort of when like someone breaks up with you or does you wrong in another way, you never really know their true intentions. Maybe the day she was talking shit about me was a bad day in her world, and she just was angry at everything and anything. Maybe she was felt guilty about saying bad things about me to our coworkers and by writing that email and offering me some kind words and extending an offer for help she alleviated some of her guilty feelings. NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW.
In this case, what does the receiver of these mixed messages do? It's difficult to harbor resentment toward people, because I'm sure we've all seen quotes that say things like when you don't forgive someone you are only hurting yourself, yadda yadda. However at what point are you a sucker for eagerly accepting people's kind words? I am really trying to be less bitter in my life, because I don't honestly have much reason to be. Yes, I've had my heart broken, I've been wronged by people I've trusted, I have been picked on by schoolmates, I haven't gotten the guy more times then I've gotten the guy, etc. But at the end of the day, I have a life many people wish they had. I am pretty flipping funny, I'm smart, I am healthy (minus the bum foot, but that'll heal soon, I hope!), I have a select group of fantastic friends who enjoy my company, my mother and father adore me (my brother just tolerates me, I think), dogs tend to love me, babies don't cry when I hold them (on average), I have had an outpouring of encouragement and supportive words from people who have found out I was laid-off, etc. I have no reason to be bitter, however I feel like I tend to hang on to the times people have wronged me and am not very forgetting of those times. I think I do "forgive", I will absolutely not hold it against them, but once I find out someone has done something bad to me, I pretty much never trust them again.
Where do you think the line is? How do you know when you are just being a good Christian of forgiving and forgetting, and when are you being a sucker?
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