is it ever possible to trully forgive?

So...here i am in charlotte at the hotel with my mom, preparing for some final holiday shopping later on today prior to going home to asheville.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I am heading home with a lot of excitement (after being gone for 2 plus years) but also some anticipation and a little bit of anxiety.

I was going to wait to the new year to announce a new advice angle to this blog coming to life, and I will at that time in much more detail, but one of the questions that i was asked recently amidst discussion and gathering material for this psychological experament (if you so kindly will) that I am going to be conducting is......IS IT POSSIBLY FOR SOME ONE TO FULLY FORGIVE ANOTHER PERSON IF THERE HAS BEEN A BETRAYAL? CAN TRUST EVER FULLY BE REGAINED?

What is interesting about that question at this specific point in time for me, is that I am not really sure what I believe in that. I think that if you respect or love someone and you have done something to hurt them in anyway (lie, betray, do wrong) then you should do whatever you can to try to rectify that---what that means depends on the situation, but at the very least you can attempt to atone. In doing that, how that person responds to that is so highly subjective I really believe it depends on the situation. There is no formula for making things right, all you can do is try and hope that there can be a full level of forgiveness.

I think I ultimately believe that it is possible to forgive, fully...but not possible to fully forget. I think in forgiving you can let go of a lot of anger but I think in not being able to fully forget, there is almost always going to be some element of something in the back of the mind....of the one who has been betrayed, but also of the one who did the betrayal. Guilt is some hard shit to shake.

This is relevant in my life right now because I am hopefully going to see a guy (later today) for the first time in a long time. This guy.....wow. Where to even begin. I could probably write a full fledged 450 page novel about this relationship I have with him and all of the f-ed up things I have done...and maybe I will someday...but for the sake of keeping this somewhat short, lets just say that he was one of my best friends growing up, we never hooked up, I wanted to but it never happened, I am not sure if he wanted/wants to...or if he even ever felt that way.

The entire time we've had this weird friendship---it has been filled with tension and hope and love and passion....and could've probably been much more but instead I also caused it to be filled with a lot of emptiness. I have not followed through on my end of the bargain more often than I have with him, I've been a shitty friend, and I think perhaps there is an irreparable loss of trust from him to me.

It gets more complicated because I am pretty sure I am in love with him. Every guy I have ever dated I've compared to him. He's always in the back of my mind....and I just can't seem to shake it. I think I need to know. Need to know what it would be like to kiss him and if there is ever any part of him that could ever/has ever/ will ever love any part of me and be able to look past our roller coaster of a relationship thus far and give it/us a shot.

There are so many factors: i could never live in asheville/he likely wouldn't live in nyc, he's never given me any indication that he'd even want to kiss me, and we have a mountain full of shit between us that I have caused.

I have decided that I am going to spill it to him and just tell him how I feel, apologize...and say what I need to say.

I am so terrified that he will reject me....but more terrified that I might spend my whole life never knowing.

Sigh. Here we go....

ps---photo above...one of my favorites...something about it just looks like light,love, happiness, and hope all bundled into a single random MOMA exhibit.