letting go

The rest of the previous post would have gone on to talk about the seventies and the so-called 'me' generation.
Perhaps the most appealing and apalling thing about the feline person who finally is moving on was the way she constantly challenged 'me" ism--the whole idea of putting oneself first. Carried to one extreme it is the philosophical position of the Anton Levay school of "Satanism" Put another way it is the basis of so much pop psycholog from "Looking Out for Number One" to the song "The Greatest Love of All" which can be anything from an Anthem to an all time low in self indulgent camp
I am thinking a lot about forgiveness. I feel that there has been a lot of abuse going on around me, from my father's abuse of my mother and myself, to the abusive relationships that I've been in (my ex wife, her boyfriend my ex best friend from high school who was physically abusive, an alchoholic transy ex navy seal, the feline, the cult leader, etc. etc. etc. I realise that I need to explore what it is about me that up to the present moment left me prone to falling into abusive relationships, while at the same time to start right now to forgive and let go.
I thought that my friend who has as many personalities as Howard Johnson has flavours of ice cream was a little bit beyond reason with her unrelenting critique of "borderline' thinking which is to say the idea that there are good guys and bad guys and that it always makes sense to take a side. There are times when I still feel that it is right and necssary to take sides, but also things are always more complex then they seem. I am a recent survivor of a war between two people each of whom has accused the other of abuse and both of whom who are quite guilty. I've seen them do terrible things to each other, and they've both done terrible things to me and to other people around them.
And now it is time to start to put the whole thing behind me. I need to detach myself from both of them and to allow the process of understanding to lead to the kind of forgiveness which does NOT say that what these people did is okay, but rather that I do NOT have to let the pain and anger keep me bound to people from whom I need to be truly FREE. In my father's case I did this when I realised that I was older than he was at the time he died, so that rebelling against him any further would be pointless.
It seems that there is a trend of making an identity out of victemhood. So-called "survivors' of everything from various so-called "addictions" to various kinds of real and imagined abuse, etc. seem to get stuck in the moment that a particularly grievious insult or injury occurred. I have been known to carry grudges and to never let go of anything myself. I need to make today the day I resolve to just let go of stuff. The past two years need to end. Now.