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Whether or not I have any type of chance with Flame beyond friendship, I knew one thing for sure. I needed to say I was sorry.
You may remember me saying that I cut Flame out of my life once. Not my greatest hour. We do crazy things when we’re in pain. I was in both physical and emotional pain. No excuse, just the reasons.
Last night I was thinking about our friendship from his perspective, and how quickly I disappeared, how completely. In that moment, I felt compelled to make amends.
I stopped what I was doing, reached out, and apologized. He accepted it in his typical gracious fashion. And I don’t know if I can explain this clearly – but I didn’t apologize to receive relief from his forgiveness.
I apologized to set things right. And in return, I was set free. Not from his forgiveness – in his conduct with me it was clear that he had already forgiven me, probably as soon as I did it, as is his style.
The freedom came from the gesture itself.
This started me thinking about how many people in my life have done things that I felt were wrong, and apologized, vs people who I resumed relationships with, in the absence of any admittance that they were wrong, or regret over hurting me.
Sometimes, even when the thing you did was really hurtful, or wrong, or just out of character, the fact that you apologize for what you did will more than cancel out the mistake for the other party.
And it’s amazing how much peace it can bring you. As side effects go, that one’s hard to beat. :)
Have a great day.