Life Desk :
Forgiveness is not an obligation on the forgiven.
It requires some mettle on one’s part to forgive someone, who has caused you great grief. When your heart writhes with agony, the thought of forgiveness seems like a joke. The greater the pain, the greater is the test of your strength in forgiving.
About three years ago, I was working at what I like to call, a miserable place, where I ran into a new employee and we instantly became friends. We enjoyed talking to each other, I enjoyed her company and I do owe some of my happiest moments at that miserable place to her. I shall refer to her as C.
Realizing me as a threat to her personal ambition, in less than a month, she conspired against me. She turned all my colleagues and the management against me, told white lies to everyone and almost made it a question of life and death till I felt I couldn’t handle it anymore. The management had already turned deaf and dumb to me. I had decided to resign and the following day, I went early to talk to the management one last time. But, it was of no use, I was fired on the spot. I retorted to my boss in a no less heated tone and said, “No, you can’t fire me. I am resigning. This is my resignation letter.”
What I went through after this is more difficult to describe. Becoming suddenly jobless was the least part of my problem. I sank into a deep chasm of depression. I couldn’t get away from the memories of the past three months. These occurrences would replay in my mind frequently. Every time I tried to sleep, I would get her nightmares; of her harming me in some way or the other. Whenever, I happened to pass through that workplace, I would get drown in painful thoughts and sometime had to struggle to refrain from breaking out sobbing in public. And indeed I would often, far too often, weep when alone.
The pain was unbearable.
Two months after my resignation, my boss emailed me asking if I would like to work again under different circumstances.
We met.
My boss was honestly penitent, apologized and realized she had been at fault and wanted me back. She offered me a double salary and an elevated status as compared to earlier. And she promised that she would keep C away from me. I was about to join but then I got an offer from another place and instead joined there.
A new place, a new environment, and a whole new bunch of colleagues made my nightmares start to vanish. I got immersed in my work which helped me in forgetting C. However, every now and then, my over cautious behavior towards my colleagues, an aversion to forming closer contacts and the fear of making enemies like C, showed how deeply scarred I was from inside. And there were times when I would relapse in moody silence.
“It will take some time to heal,” I told myself. Fate doesn’t work that way though. Does it? Nearly a year later, C joined the same institution and I was shocked beyond words.
On her first day, she just sailed into the place like a breeze of ocean air, touring all the work areas, encountered me, spread an ear to ear beaming smile on her face and exclaimed, “Hi, how nice to see you!” She pretended as if we were long lost sisters!
My troubled dreams, the replay of the old drama and the depression returned in full force. My wounds turned green again.
Forgiveness is not an obligation on the forgiven.
It requires some mettle on one’s part to forgive someone, who has caused you great grief. When your heart writhes with agony, the thought of forgiveness seems like a joke. The greater the pain, the greater is the test of your strength in forgiving.
About three years ago, I was working at what I like to call, a miserable place, where I ran into a new employee and we instantly became friends. We enjoyed talking to each other, I enjoyed her company and I do owe some of my happiest moments at that miserable place to her. I shall refer to her as C.
Realizing me as a threat to her personal ambition, in less than a month, she conspired against me. She turned all my colleagues and the management against me, told white lies to everyone and almost made it a question of life and death till I felt I couldn’t handle it anymore. The management had already turned deaf and dumb to me. I had decided to resign and the following day, I went early to talk to the management one last time. But, it was of no use, I was fired on the spot. I retorted to my boss in a no less heated tone and said, “No, you can’t fire me. I am resigning. This is my resignation letter.”
What I went through after this is more difficult to describe. Becoming suddenly jobless was the least part of my problem. I sank into a deep chasm of depression. I couldn’t get away from the memories of the past three months. These occurrences would replay in my mind frequently. Every time I tried to sleep, I would get her nightmares; of her harming me in some way or the other. Whenever, I happened to pass through that workplace, I would get drown in painful thoughts and sometime had to struggle to refrain from breaking out sobbing in public. And indeed I would often, far too often, weep when alone.
The pain was unbearable.
Two months after my resignation, my boss emailed me asking if I would like to work again under different circumstances.
We met.
My boss was honestly penitent, apologized and realized she had been at fault and wanted me back. She offered me a double salary and an elevated status as compared to earlier. And she promised that she would keep C away from me. I was about to join but then I got an offer from another place and instead joined there.
A new place, a new environment, and a whole new bunch of colleagues made my nightmares start to vanish. I got immersed in my work which helped me in forgetting C. However, every now and then, my over cautious behavior towards my colleagues, an aversion to forming closer contacts and the fear of making enemies like C, showed how deeply scarred I was from inside. And there were times when I would relapse in moody silence.
“It will take some time to heal,” I told myself. Fate doesn’t work that way though. Does it? Nearly a year later, C joined the same institution and I was shocked beyond words.
On her first day, she just sailed into the place like a breeze of ocean air, touring all the work areas, encountered me, spread an ear to ear beaming smile on her face and exclaimed, “Hi, how nice to see you!” She pretended as if we were long lost sisters!
My troubled dreams, the replay of the old drama and the depression returned in full force. My wounds turned green again.
