Another year, another Yom Kippur...
You know that tradition is important when you voluntarily starve yourself for a day...
Today was Yom Kippur, so for those who do not know what that is and are afraid I have an eating disorder (which I don't, food is GOOD), I had to attend services pretty much all day and fast from sundown yesterday to dusk today, so for 25 hours NO FOOD or drink. Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement, where Jews everywhere are supposed to look inside themselves to see what sorts of transgressions they have committed in the last year and apologize for them. However, since we aren't supposed to apologize to G-d before we apologize to those we've caused pain, we are supposed to find everyone we may have hurt this year and make amends.
Harder to do than to type.
It is a very difficult thing to actually look inside yourself and answer honestly if you've really hurt someone in the past year. I know that I have - I hurt Dima when I broke up with him, but we've long since gotten to the point where we can call each other every now and then to see how the other is doing.
However, it is even more difficult to acknowledge when you still haven't been forgiven by the person you hurt. Regardless of how it started or how it ended, I'm under a religious and traditional obligation to apologize to my roommate from last year, Dana, for any pain I might have caused her, intentionally or unintentionally. We used to be friends, and I haven't actually spoken to her since I moved out of the dorm in May. I think in this situation we need to aplogize to each other and move on from there, either friends or not, but it is still something I need to do. Yom Kippur may be over, but there is no "deadline" to how long you need to take to apologize to someone as long as you do it before either one of you dies, hence the word deadline.
Granted, by the time my old flame Andy from years ago apologized to me, I was already over it, considering it was about four years after the fact, but he told me he would think about me every Yom Kippur, so he still did the right thing.
I also recognize that semi-apologizing over LiveJournal doesn't count, even if Dana still checks in here from time to time for who-knows-what reason, but at least I'm "publicly" acknowledging that it's something I should do. Even if she doesn't return the apology.
Today was Yom Kippur, so for those who do not know what that is and are afraid I have an eating disorder (which I don't, food is GOOD), I had to attend services pretty much all day and fast from sundown yesterday to dusk today, so for 25 hours NO FOOD or drink. Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement, where Jews everywhere are supposed to look inside themselves to see what sorts of transgressions they have committed in the last year and apologize for them. However, since we aren't supposed to apologize to G-d before we apologize to those we've caused pain, we are supposed to find everyone we may have hurt this year and make amends.
Harder to do than to type.
It is a very difficult thing to actually look inside yourself and answer honestly if you've really hurt someone in the past year. I know that I have - I hurt Dima when I broke up with him, but we've long since gotten to the point where we can call each other every now and then to see how the other is doing.
However, it is even more difficult to acknowledge when you still haven't been forgiven by the person you hurt. Regardless of how it started or how it ended, I'm under a religious and traditional obligation to apologize to my roommate from last year, Dana, for any pain I might have caused her, intentionally or unintentionally. We used to be friends, and I haven't actually spoken to her since I moved out of the dorm in May. I think in this situation we need to aplogize to each other and move on from there, either friends or not, but it is still something I need to do. Yom Kippur may be over, but there is no "deadline" to how long you need to take to apologize to someone as long as you do it before either one of you dies, hence the word deadline.
Granted, by the time my old flame Andy from years ago apologized to me, I was already over it, considering it was about four years after the fact, but he told me he would think about me every Yom Kippur, so he still did the right thing.
I also recognize that semi-apologizing over LiveJournal doesn't count, even if Dana still checks in here from time to time for who-knows-what reason, but at least I'm "publicly" acknowledging that it's something I should do. Even if she doesn't return the apology.