I’ve been working on a series of musical posts this month. It’s harder than it seems. Putting together a mix tape is a lot of work. In my search for songs, I ran across this one:

The lyrics struck a chord (forgive the bad musical pun):

Wear the grudge like a crown of negativity.
Calculate what we will or will not tolerate.
Desperate to control all and everything.
Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen.

Clutch it like a cornerstone. Otherwise it all comes down.
Justify denials and grip ’em to the lonesome end.
Clutch it like a cornerstone. Otherwise it all comes down.
Terrified of being wrong. Ultimatum prison cell.

Saturn ascends, choose one or ten. Hang on or be humbled again.

Clutch it like a cornerstone. Otherwise it all comes down.
Justify denials and grip ’em to the lonesome end.
Saturn ascends, comes round again.
Saturn ascends, the one, the ten. Ignorant to the damage done.

Wear the grudge like a crown of negativity.
Calculate what we will or will not tolerate.
Desperate to control all and everything.
Unable to forgive your scarlet lettermen.

Wear your grudge like a crown. Desperate to control.
Unable to forgive. And we’re sinking deeper.

Defining, confining, controlling, and we’re sinking deeper.

Saturn comes back around to show you everything
Let’s you choose what you will not see and then
Drags you down like a stone or lifts you up again
Spits you out like a child, light and innocent.

Saturn comes back around. Lifts you up like a child or
Drags you down like a stone
To consume you till you choose to let this go.

Give away the stone. Let the oceans take and
Transmutate this cold and fated anchor.
Give away the stone. Let the waters kiss and
Transmutate these leaden grudges into gold.
Let go.

It’s fitting that this song would come to me now since Tool is one of the bands I couldn’t listen to for a long time because of Monster #2. It’s only recently that I’ve begun to reclaim the music he stole from me. Monster #2 is a drunken, abusive sociopath. He beat me, abused me, demeaned me, stole from me, lied to me, manipulated me, and tried to kill me. I hate him. I hated myself for allowing him in my life. I no longer hate myself for it, but I still hate him. I can’t help it. Whenever I think of him, anger rises along with pure black hate. I can feel it in me. It’s a tangible presence.

Monster #1 is even more deserving of my hatred; he preyed on me when I was only a child. He was a sadistic pedophile. He liked to hog tie me, shove a dirty sock in my mouth and play his dirty games. My fear entertained him. He broke me down and put me back together completely the wrong way. I cannot even think about him, to this day, without my lips forming an automatic sneer, my eyes instinctively narrowing, my heart beating a little faster and the taste of bile suddenly appearing in my mouth.

So, dear Tool and everyone else who gives this correct, but impossible to follow advice, how do you recommend that I just “let go?” How do I do that? Really, I would like to know. I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I’m tired of the strain on my body and soul. I’m exhausted when I think about living this way forever. I am so unbelievably fucking tired of being broken and angry.

I do not think that my anger is unjustified and I doubt that any of you, having read the previous paragraphs, would disagree. My anger is justified. My anger and hate are so brutally warranted that I doubt anyone would blame me if I did something drastic. Don’t worry yourself though. If I was going to do something drastic, I would have done so long before now. In my opinion, revenge is not best served cold. It is best served with swift, deliberate justice.

Now, if you have already come up with some advice for me on how to just let go, before you share it with me, let me share some more about why I cannot forgive:

I never got justice. They are both still out there.

It might be possible to start to let go if I knew that neither one of them could ever create another victim. If they were dead and buried, not through my own actions, of course, or in prison where they belong, I might be able to let go. But that didn’t happen. It still hasn’t happened. It won’t happen. The statute of limitations have expired for both of them. They are both free and clear forever for their actions towards me.

Beaten, abused, betrayed, raped, molested, tortured, tied up, blindfolded, terrified, kidnapped, pulled out of bed in the middle of the night, taunted, gagged, strangled, punched, kicked, demeaned, bruised, battered, broken. Unsafe forever more. That’s what I got from them. Justice received: none.

So, tell me, if you were me, how would you do it? How would you not feel terror whenever they contact you as if nothing had happened, because they will? How would you reconcile the fact that you live in hiding while they are freer than you will ever be? How could you let go knowing that they’re still out there, free to create more victims? How would you not be consumed by worry that you let all of those other children and women down by leaving their traps set? How could you not feel guilty and terrified for them, knowing what they are walking into? How would you forgive that? How would you live with that? How can you forgive a monster who is still free to be a monster? How could you just let go?

For those of us who have been severely wronged, forgiveness is the hardest thing to do, but hanging onto the grudge will “consume you till you choose to let this go.” I’ve been trying to get rid of my hate and anger, but I just can’t seem to do it. I cannot forgive. Tool seems to imply that it is as easy as choosing to let it go. If only it were.