I've never been one to hold grudges. Ever since I was a kid, saying "it's okay" after a hurtful experience and continuing life as it was before had never been a struggle for me. I'd never had issues with letting go and moving on. Almost to a fault, I would be able to brush off any given wrong done to me and live on acting as if the world still spun the same as it had before. I always liked that about myself, I saw it as adaptability and being easy-going. I didn't want to be fussy or make a big stink over anything. Growing up in a small town with a LOT of back-biting and gossip, I figured by not holding on to things, I was making an active decision to not gossip or speak poorly of anyone.

What I didn't realize, however, was that I was really setting myself up for failure.

The reality of the situation, as I have come to learn over the past year, is that it wasn't that I was being easy-going and forgiving as I had always thought, but I was really just avoiding confrontation. The difference is that I would never talk things out with people that had hurt me. You couldn't pay me enough to go to someone and tell them that something they did hurt me or was wrong on some level. The idea of doing that makes me cringe even now. What was actually happening was that I would choose to forgive them and pretend that they were actually sorry, rather than taking the issue to the person that had hurt me and sorting it out with them. I'm not saying that someone HAS to say that they're sorry in order to be forgiven, but pretending that they had apologized and that we had sorted it out and that any real growth had occurred in the relationship was a major flaw that I didn't recognize within myself until recently.

I won't go into specific instances of where I've been wronged or hurt and learned all of this, but suffice it to say that I did learn all of this the hard way. Rather, I learned it in a way that was hard for me. I learned how it feels to hold a grudge, and what all goes into forming one in the first place.

Grudges are interesting to me, because, depending on your perspective they're either justified or ridiculous. I used to find them sad and ridiculous, because they took people's happiness away, and I saw it as a choice to hold on to one. Why would you drink poison and expect someone else to die? It wasn't logical in the least to me.
And that's kind of the point.
When you're a kid, you "know" things, but they don't make sense. You "know" not to walk in front of the kids on the swings, but you don't make sense of it until one of them kicks you in the face. That's how life works. You're taught all these things growing up by people that know more than you, and you just sort of take it with a shrug. "Sure, Mom, I won't cross a busy street without checking because cars would squash me like a grape. I get it." And logically, you do. Until your favorite bouncing ball of all time bounces onto the street and you'll be a rotten egg if you let that sucker out of your sight. It's not until you really experience things that you actually understand what you've been taught.

Sadly, the same goes for things like grudges. I didn't really get it until I got it. Holding on to hurt and pain without dealing with it is probably one of the top five most unhealthy behaviors to have. But there is a lot to be learned from holding a grudge, and as sucky as this may sound I hope you experience this once in your life (it hopefully only takes one time for you to learn from it, but learn from it you must). I hope you come to realize that you're not helping your relationship with that person by not holding them accountable within your relationship. Be it a friend, sibling, parent, coworker, or significant other, every person you have any sort of relationship with has a responsibility within that relationship. Seems a bit heavy, but it's true.
I hope you learn your limits and that you form more distinct boundaries for yourself. I honestly have always had issues with forming boundaries with people, as I never wanted to seem closed or unwelcoming to others. The main thing I learned with that is that you can have privacy and boundaries and still be loving and welcoming and open. You don't have to give up one to have the other, but you do have to balance them. And ultimately that's the point, isn't it? Learning how to balance everything and forming a cohesive whole.

I hope you learn how to take care of yourself emotionally. I'm nowhere close to being there, but I do feel like I'm getting started. I'm learning that it does nobody any good to be silent when you're hurt. Speak up, and speak the truth. Sugar-coating how hurt you are to make it easier for someone else's ego to swallow isn't teaching anyone anything. It's acceptable to say "it's definitely not okay, but I do forgive you." It doesn't have to be okay right now. It is important to mean it when you forgive someone. But make sure that you do forgive. Not just for them, but for you, too. It isn't helping anyone to become better if you just say a bunch of things you don't really mean, because it isn't fostering change. You've got to be comfortable with change of you want to get anywhere. Which, personally, I struggle with a lot. I'm not nearly as adaptable as I thought I was, but I think that's because I never really had to adapt to anything.

Here's to growth. It hurts worse than smashing your hipbone into the corner of the kitchen counter, but at least you learn something from it.
Well, sometimes.