Why is it when something nice happens to us it doesn't really stick in our active memory but if someone wrongs us we never seem to forget. The mere mention of the person's name will send us into a rant of every little detail on every little thing that they ever did to us.
Now the person I'm thinking of it wasn't the little things, they were big things. In years of therapy I couldn't even say the person's name but I could sure recount the horrible wrongs that were done to me. And even after that I still couldn't let it go. And we're talking about things that happened over 20 years ago.
There was stalking and emotional abuse but I was eventually able to set myself free from it and live a somewhat productive life. From the little I know the same can't really be said of the person who wronged me.
Well I saw this person recently for the first time in those twenty-something years and you know what - there is no reason to continue holding onto this deep-seated hate. I looked at him and talked to him and felt, well, nothing. He couldn't hurt me anymore. There was no control or power over me anymore. Looking at him I wondered why there even had been. But that was a different place and a different time.
And I think 22 years is long enough to hold a grudge.
