Apologies are very important to me because it denotes a closure in a sometimes circular argument. One side (or both) is conceding their "victory." I appreciate and need closure in an argument in order to feel like the person who hurt me acknowledges and understands that their actions aren't ok with me and should not be repeated in the future. After the apology, I move on and am over the argument. However, no apology = grudge for life.
I realize this isn't healthy and it affects me more than it will ever affect the person I hold the grudge against. There is one group of girls in particular that I've had a really hard time forgiving. I want to forgive them just to get rid of the anger and hurt that they caused, but every time I think of the events that transpired and how things were handled I get upset all over again.
In the Fall of my Junior year things were going great. I was living in my sorority house with my two best friends, making good grades (my first semester to almost get a 4.0), meeting cute boys at frat parties, and having an all around blast. But when you're on top of the world you eventually fall down.
We would all pregame together, party together, walk home in our shacker wear together...but something wasn't quite right. My best friends' behavior and attitude towards me was changing and I didn't know what was going on.
One night we had a group of girls in our suite to watch Grey's Anatomy before heading downtown--our usual Thursday ritual. During the show I started to get ready during the commercials. No one else did. I asked if we were still going out. They said no. That was fine with me because I was still hanging out with my besties. I quit getting ready and actually took my makeup off and was ready to get comfy and stay in for the night.
After the show I left the room to do something and when I came back all of the girls were gone. I went downstairs to see if they were in the room of one of the girls who had been watching Grey's with us. No roomies, just the girl who lived there. I asked her if they knew where my roomies were. She told me they were getting ready to go downtown but didn't want me to go.
It felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I had known something was up, but why would the girls who I thought were my best friends not want me around? She told me they thought I was partying too much. Oh, I was so hurt. I ran back up to my room where they were now changing to go out. I locked myself in my room. They left but not before taking obligatory going out pics on the balcony...ya know, where everyone could see them, including me. I had never felt this sort of pain. I was being shunned by the girls who I had pledged my sorority with, experienced two life-changing years of college with, gone on trips with, shared crazy memories with...it was too much to handle.
I called one of my good friends who was in a different sorority (I didn't want to involve anyone else from mine) and asked her to come over. I didn't want to be alone. She came over (thank God) and made me feel better. I am so thankful for her helping me calm down and go to bed that night. Before I went to bed I threw my bottle of vodka away...on the sidewalk. I tend to have a flair for dramatics.
Things weren't the same after that night. There was a tension between us. I tried to patch things and work on our friendships, but they wanted nothing to do with me unless I changed. That was really hard. I didn't drink for a couple months after that because I was really concerned that my friends thought I had a problem. What's strange is while I immediately stopped drinking and partying they continued to do so. It didn't make any sense to me. It was like I was doing everything wrong while trying to get back in their good graces and they weren't working on mending the friendship at all.
Then I got angry.
Our other roommate seemed to essentially take my place in the circle of friends while I was relegated to outsider. Like any group of girls, our sorority had its cliques and I was ostracized from my group of friends because of the situation with my roommates. My life sucked for a couple of months and I moved out of the sorority house and into my parents house for a while, commuting to and from school each day.
More and more crap happened--meetings with advisors and the president of the sorority, huge blow ups between my roommate and I (the one that I shared a bedroom with), documents signed because I was viewed as a threat. The girl who I shared a bedroom with (and the one who took my place in our circle of friends) reported me to someone on the Executive Board because of two incidents.
The first was that I locked her out of the room. I don't remember why I locked it but I do remember it wasn't a malicious act at all. I think I thought she wasn't going to be back anytime soon and I locked it so I wouldn't be bothered. She flipped out and banged and yelled from the other side of the door. I immediately unlocked it so she could come into our room. It really wasn't a big deal. Or so I thought.
The second incident was after we had been living with the tension in our suite and we pretty much hated each other. I had come home late one night after a party and turned on the lights, completely disregarding her. I was being a bitch--remember the flair for dramatics? Not long after that she came home late one night and turned on the lights. I asked her to turn them off. She said that since I had turned them on while she was sleeping she could turn them on while I was sleeping. I got up to turn them off. She turned on the lamp in between our beds. I turned it off. She went to turn it back on and I slapped her hand away. All hell broke loose after that and she dramatically said, "Don't hit me!" She gathered her things and left to sleep somewhere else. I knew I would be in trouble.
Everything escalated until we were living in a hate-filled suite with no communication whatsoever. It is the strangest thing in the world to live with three people who at one time were your very closest friends to people who you don't even speak to.
Eventually I moved rooms and lived with an adorable girl who was a joy to live with. We weren't close friends but we were perfect roommates.
To this day I am not sure why they decided to ostracize me from the group. It's apparent I didn't have a drinking problem because I could immediately stop with the partying. We had had issues in the past because they were a part of a secret organization that I wasn't asked to be in. (The excuse being that they didn't think I could handle it because my dad had recently died. Good call! Don't include me and keep secrets from me because I just lost one of the most important persons in my life!) Perhaps it had something to do with that.
I can recognize today that my actions during that time were the same as if I had experienced a loss. My best friends and I broke up. Suddenly. With no warning.
Today I want to forgive them. I want this burden to be lifted off of my heart, and I want them to know that we all made mistakes in that situation. I'm sorry for the disrespectful things I said and did. They might never apologize for their actions, and they might not even think they did anything wrong. There are two sides to every story. But I know that I don't want to continue holding this grudge against them. I'm not being fair to myself by continuing to do so. I forgive you.
No comments:
Post a Comment