Weekly Journal – Struggles
One thing I was thinking about when I was deciding what to write about was that a lot of my previous posts make it seem like everything is going great here and with all my activities and projects, I’ve got it all figured out and have a perfect plan going forward. I was also thinking about how I don’t really know who my audience is with all this. I have no idea if anyone is reading this or will ever read it. While everything I’ve written is true, sometimes I feel like I only focus on positive things, and don’t confront my fears and struggles. Since I think my audience for this is probably just myself and doing self-reflection, I wanted to take a step back this week and acknowledge I don’t have it all figured out.
There are days I have no idea how to go on. I have tons of worries and don’t know what my life will look like when I leave. I sometimes feel completely lost and overwhelmed. I hate myself for what I’ve done. I think about how important the people in my life were to me pre-arrest and how I hurt all of them. Because my crime involved a huge betrayal of trust, I hurt everyone I know to different degrees, especially those I cared about most. Because of that betrayal, I’m sure it’s hard for people to reconcile the fact that I cared about these people yet hurt them, but the two things aren’t mutually exclusive. I didn’t consciously mean to or try to hurt anyone, but I was selfish and made a series of bad decisions, and I struggle daily with trying to figure out ways to fix something I know I never can.
I was recently watching a series called “The Chosen.” There is a very emotional scene where after being saved by Jesus, Mary Magdalene has a relapse going back to her previous sins. Afterwards she is embarrassed to go back to Jesus. She can’t make eye contact with him and can only say that she’s not worthy. She says that no matter what she does, it can never live up to what he has done for her, and in her mind, she can never do enough to be worthy of his love and forgiveness. This scene effected me deeply. While a very different situation, the emotions and feelings she expressed were how I feel all the time.
Though I know I’ll never hear from them again, I feel like no matter what I do, it can never be enough to earn forgiveness from my victims or convince them how sorry I am and that I will never do anything like this again. I feel like no matter how hard I try, I can never make up to my wife for all the burdens I have put on her. My kids love me unconditionally now, but I fear for the future when they realize the time and opportunities my actions cost them and us. I don’t feel worthy of forgiveness and feel overwhelmed at what seems like an impossible task of trying to make amends.
But I always come back to the decision that giving up is not a valid option. So my efforts now, my future plans and the things I post about are the only way I know to go forward. I know it will never be enough, but not trying isn’t a solution. A friend helped me kind of re-shape my thinking. I’ve thought about this as a massive debt I have to pay, that I owe society, the victims and my family. For a while, that was my motivation to focus on good acts moving forward, but that is what is overwhelming because I feel that debt can never be paid. While I’ll never forget those I hurt, it is better to try to frame it as just re-focusing my life on making each decision going forward in a positive way. To try to be the good person I’ve always wanted to be. Not to pay a debt, but because that’s the right way to live. Then I can break things down to one decision at a time and hopefully doing these journals and planning for the future will help with that.
