Autumn.
The leaves turn from a lively, lush green to a crisp yellow, earthy red, or clay brown as they sway in the fragrant fall breeze, a little bit more enigmatic and purposeful than the gentle summer air. Coffees become more savory. Blankets. The crackling of the screaming wood from a bonfire as the smoke from the ashes rise high into the thick, dark night sky (that now turns dark at 7:00pm) as the scent of smoke stains your jackets, your sweaters, your hair, your blue-jeans. The tightening of one's jacket. The apple orchards. The Harvest. The Change.
One of the many reasons why Autumn is my favorite season is that it brings about one of the most visible, tangible concepts of change, in personal appearance, in ambiance, in mood, in the earth around us. Our busy summer routines, free schedules (that become very un-free as soon as we take on the mentality that we have endless amounts of time to cram every aspect of fun and relaxation in), our adventures, we let go of all of them as we settle into our schedule of work, hot drinks, and routine. F. Scott Fitzgerald summed it up perfectly in his quote from, "The Great Gatsby" when he states, "Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall."
How beautiful is that? The air gets crisper, the food and the drink and the mood gets richer from the earthy harvest. That's what Fall is all about, right? The harvest, and the reaping of what we have sown, what we have worked for, bled for, cried for, believed in. It is the reward of getting to enjoy all of the sensations of the most sensational season with the people you love, the things that you love, and the gearing up for discovering and growing in your passions and work all over again. This time, with a year's worth of lessons that enable you to enjoy it as a better human being.
With the letting go of the attitude that summer instills, and the taking in of the harvest, what better season to ponder self reckoning. What better season to explore forgiveness. That's what forgiveness is all about, right? The taking in, and the letting go.
Autumn is an awesome season, but it is not an easy season. Unlike the season of summer, we have to work. We have to establish a routine, to put forth effort, to all of a sudden, be conscious again. And, though it isn't easy, we find ourselves feeling accomplished, we find ourselves flourishing inside of the structured routine of goals we have created for ourselves, enjoying the weekends, the Saturdays, the Sundays, as mini-vacations. It's so curious how the most rewarding things, the things that really make us grow, usually aren't the things we find most immediately enjoyable.
How similar is forgiveness?
See, the thing that is so hard for us to grasp about forgiveness, the thing that makes it so hard for us to reconcile within ourselves, is that it isn't always fair. As a human beings living in a world with governments and laws that try to instill this concept of justness and fairness inside of our heads from little children on, it is really, really hard for us to forgive because of all of the wonderful things forgiveness is made of, fairness is not an ingredient.
And sure, it is easy to forgive a cat fight with a friend, a sibling, or a significant other. It is easy to forgive a person who honks you out in early morning traffic. It is so easy to forgive when the assault is impersonal.
But what happens when the assault is a wound? What happens when it comes from the very person or people who are supposed to keep you safe? What if it was ego-shattering, earth crashing, and all of a sudden, the health of your emotions and placed trust are ripped out from underneath of you like a rug pulled from beneath your feet.
We all have that incident. That one incident that we can think of that causes our stomach to boil in anger, our fists to clench. The one that we can physically feel our pulse quickening at the mere thought of it. We all have experienced the anger and the emptiness in our ribcages as we force ourselves to horrendously relive the situation and think, "why? why? why?"
And when we do this, it disables us from growing. It completely prohibits us from exploring ourselves and the world around us through the state of a heart full of love for stability, wisdom, intelligence, humanity, and compassion. We cannot grow if we are continually placing a lid on ourselves by revisiting anger. We cannot grow if we spend time re-condemning someone over and over again, when we could be spending that time healing and learning.
Forgiveness is hard. And often times, it is harder when the person you have to forgive isn't sorry, or hasn't tried to make things right. But, there is an aspect to forgiveness we rarely acknowledge. And that is:
Forgiveness has nothing to do with another person.
Forgiveness is a single-heart thing. It is you, deciding for yourself, that you have taken it in, and it is time to let go. It is time to grow. Forgiveness is hard, because it takes grace. And grace is hard, because it takes growth, it takes going against your pain and realizing that "loving, despite of," that loving still, is more important than getting the fairness that you are due.
Forgiveness is the act of realizing that whomever hurt you has a mind, a heart, a life, as complex and as deep as your own. It is realizing that they most definitely have their issues deeply imbedded inside of them as well. It is being tired of being angry. Forgiveness is the conscious decision to pardon what they have done to you, to understand it, explore it, and be at peace with it. To take it in, and let it go.
And when we do this, when we force ourselves to engage in this, we are teaching ourselves how to engage in the hard things, to love the imperfect, to further our understanding, and to realize that the only way we can change the world is by starting with ourselves. We can still love people in their mess, we can still forgive people when they aren't sorry, we can let go and move on without forgetting the lessons that the situation taught us. We can use the lessons to better ourselves.
And when we come to this state of forgiveness, we will come to a place of peace, and our lives may really truly start again when things grow crisp in the fall.
