The Limits of Forgiveness.

Author's note: I'm sure this is moderately inappropriate of me, but sometimes you have to be moderately inappropriate. Without recourse to any other outlet, this is what I have. Sue me.

I'm not a saint. Anyone that saw me last weekend puking onto my friends' second floor porch can attest to this. But in a less concrete, and more spiritual sense, I'm not a saint. I talk a lot about forgiveness, about the need for compassion and empathy and understanding and perspective. And yes, I do try very hard to practice these precepts in my daily life.

This often makes me appear as if I am a doormat.

Let me tell you straight up: I am not a doormat. You may not step on me at will. You may not rub your filth on me. There are limits to my capacity for forgiveness. Because I am not a saint. I am still the 10-year-old girl who smashed the bully's face into the coathooks.

Don't fuck with me. I will fuck you up beyond recognition and leave you broken and bleeding on the floor.

I am not nice because I cannot conceive of any other way to be. I am not forgiving because I am gullible. I am not compassionate because I am stupid. I am all nice and forgiving and compassionate because I choose, every minute of every day, to exercise the better parts of my nature and not the worse. I consciously decide, in every moment, to be the better person that I know I can be. It is hard work. But it is ultimately far more rewarding than any of the small, petty victories that manipulation and narcissism could bring me.

But there are things that I cannot and will not forgive. There are things that you just don't do. I don't care how desperate you are, I don't care how amoral you are. There are things you just don't do.

Falsely accusing someone of rape is one of those things. Just don't do it, kids. Public goddamn service announcement, straight from my fingers to your eyes. Just say no to permanently and irrevocably tarnishing someone's public reputation because you fucked up.

I fuck up, too. All the time. But I don't do things like that, because I do choose every minute of every day to be a better person, even in the wake of fucking up. Even in the moment of knowing that I've lost my battle with my worse nature, I don't give up the war. I take stock of my losses and I look at my weaknesses and I go back into the fray better prepared to guard against those destructive, awful impulses that make one manipulative and narcissistic and a terrible fucking person.

You should choose that, too. And if you don't choose it, I will destroy your life. There are limits to my forgiveness, and if you are so far gone that you need a lesson, I will gladly administer it. I am both smart enough and ruthless enough, and I will destroy your life.

Don't let me hear that shit again. Ever.