Quantification

Current mood: wondering

How do you quantify hurt?

How about betrayal?

What makes a particular act more or less hurtful than another? At what point does the willful act of inflicting hurt become unacceptable? How do you know where to draw the line for granting forgiveness? Should there even be a line? Christians don't believe that there should be ever be a line in the sand past which forgiveness can't be at least considered. Of course, New Testamenters don't believe in revenge or karma, either. Clearly, I've left behind many of the ideals of my childhood.

Neither does the culture of family allow for such a breaking point. In theory, the ties of family and obligation bind beyond all reason and far past the point of rage and despair. "No matter what, family first" would be a good motto for the group I'm most familiar with - Asian, Christian, immigrant parents with ABC children.

The web of lines connecting duty, love, and self-preservation have held me in suspension all of my life. Sometimes the conflicts between what I've been raised to believe and what I feel in my head and heart have driven me deep into confused self-loathing. At times, I've wanted to give in; to finally surrender either my anger or my security, make a clean break, and move on and away from the past.

I've never been able to choose.

Part of my anger stems from the resentment that I have to choose. Logically, I know that we can't always get what we want. I know that my dreams of inter-relationship harmony (at least some of the time!) are simply not feasible. Ingrained personalities, views, and values prohibit the resolution that I seek. I know this, I really do. But knowing has never stopped me from wanting, and I have clung, some would say in an infantile and purposefully blind manner, to the hope that someday the situation would change for the better.

I think that I've had to believe this for my own sanity. Creature of mirth and tenderness, too easily hurt, too easy to love, dogmatic and loyal and absurd and determined am I. To have believed or acted otherwise was to admit to a darkness in myself and, by extension, those I love and ultimately, the world, that I was unwilling to contemplate. It's not a world that I wished to live in and, by refusing to acknowledge its existence, I hoped to create, Pollyanna-like, a little bit of the reality I needed to see.

Sadly, I now understand that even love and loyalty can be pushed beyond acceptance. There are shades of trust and once the relationship's final marker has been breached, it may be impossible to come back. After the chance for reconciliation has been lost, the wisest decision may be to close the door and leave conflict behind. Giving in may not be a failure, but the first step towards resolving pain. For me, this is actually new information. I'd never really considered that the path of lonely freedom was open to me.

However, though I can now bring myself to acknowledge this truth, I find that I am still unwilling to choose it. Whether through weakness or compassion or stupidity or sheer inertia, I guess the answer is that no, for me, the point past which forgiveness cannot be considered has not yet been reached. And all-gods-above-willing, it never will be. By choosing to tread the middle road attempting empathy and enduring patience (though some would say head-bashing-on-wall suckerhood), I am not a victim of, but willing party to (again with the suckerhood), my fate. I think that there is liberation in knowing that I could choose at any time to walk away and stop playing the game. From now on, that option will always be available. The fact that I choose not to exercise it brings me a modicum of peace and strength that is resolution enough.

For now.