Chapter 7 - The Forgiveness

My entire adult life has been spent trying to uncover why I am the way I am. Why I have encountered and endured so much pain? What have I done to deserve the way I have been treated? And most importantly - what can I do to change why these things happen?

It has been 26 years since that fateful period of my life. It has not been an easy, nor has there been a lot of happiness. There has been a lot of nothing. Plodding from one day to the next, working very hard, trying to find fulfillment from that. I am married but there are no children.

I met my husband four months after the abortion. Either the night we met, or perhaps the second date we went out, I shared my horror story with him. I wanted to get it out, tell him everything, so that if it affected him, he could go before I became attached to him. He didn't run away.

I am not a whiner. I don't burden others with my problems, nor do I share my life. My life with my husband was private, very private. It is in my heritage to "suck up and put up". We are Scottish, and they are a tough lot. We do not show our emotions easily or openly - good or bad. We hold it in and deal with it internally and privately. The Scottish people have had a rough life, but just as they did in The Fields of Culloden, we just keep on going, no matter what the obstacles are.

That is how I lived my life. I had my hurt hidden away, and each additional hurt that came along, I kept tucking it away, piling it on the heap. When each issue came up, I could disconnect myself from reality and break it down into bite-sized pieces and swallow it. And there was a lot to digest - too much. But I didn't know a life without hurt and pain. I had never experienced happiness.

I know now, that I should never have entered into any relationship until I had sorted out my mind. Okay, it has taken me 26 years, but I did learn. I did go to a therapist right after the procedure, but it was a psychiatrist and when she wanted to go back to my childhood and blame everything on my mother, I knew I was in the wrong place. I knew where my problems came from and who caused them and his name was Rett Muttler.

But I couldn't talk to him to sort out my life, so life went on without him. I put the hurt and the pain in a little box and stored it away. I would bring it out from time to time, when I was alone. Usually it would come out on the 20th of October or the end of November or the end of June. I had done the calculations to figure out when our child would have been born. No one knew this, just like so much in my life.

Hurt and pain take on different facades when you don't deal with it. Sometimes it is an addiction to drugs or alcohol, other times it is an eating disorder or sometimes it is just not feeling anything. You are so afraid to open yourself up for another round of abuse, it just seems logical not to feel anything. But what a way to live...you're not living...you are existing, and only barely.

That is what I did for 26 years. I existed. From the outside people thought everything was normal. No one could see the cracks in my foundation or the pile of pain, because I had become an expert actress. I 'coulda been a contenda' for the Oscar! But there are no prizes for life acting. And with everything that is cracked, eventually it breaks.

The past year I had a hiatus from my regular work to take a course for about a year. It was definitely not as stressful as work, so therefore I had time on my hands. Not a good thing for someone in my situation. I needed my mind to be occupied 24/7 or it would be hauled back to 'that' time. The course also involved sharing stories about our lives and who we were, where we came from and where we were going. Not good. As I said, it is not in my nature to share feelings or emotions.

I was okay for the first several months but the more and more we got into it, the more and more depressed and unhappy I was becoming. The more introspective I became.

About a year before this, I had been doing some Googling on the internet and I had done a quick search on Rett James Muttler, just for fun. There was one hit on his full name. It was on a site that dealt with Scottish family names, and there was an entry beside his name that said simply "Canadian clansman stuck in the desert" and beside it was an e-mail address. I had copied it into my e-mail and I would write periodically in it, trying to sort out what I might say to him if I ever did write to him.

Then came all the soul searching, and then one night I was sitting at the computer typing into the draft letter and I realized that it was his birthday. That one glimpse I had of his driver's licence 26 years ago, but somehow his birth date had stuck in my mind. I started composing an e-mail to send to him. Here is what I said...

"I am not sure why I am typing this e-mail; perhaps it is to end a lifetime of hurting. Do you remember me? I remember you. You can run, but you cannot hide.

Each year when the beginning of March rolls around I think of you because it is your birthday. I also remember you the 20th of October, the 29th of November and the end of June. Now do you remember me?

I think it is time to forgive you. After over 25 years of carrying this around, it feels heavy and unnecessary. I often wonder what my life would have been without our short encounter, but that is a waste of time. You inadvertently made me a better person...more tolerant, forgiving and understanding.

I want you to know that I would never ask you for anything, nor did I then. You were young and I expected more of you...for that matter, anyone. But I was wrong. You lied to me, and that was wrong. I believed you and that was naive. A very difficult way to learn a lesson. Did you learn anything from it? How could you?

I don't want you to think that what you did, had no affect...it did. But it is time to let it go.

I forgive you Rett James."

I thought that if I started with forgiveness it might help me find the answers to my questions concerning my life.

I was wrong.