If I could go back... I would.

I can’t stop. No matter how hard I try. It’s everywhere. Taunting me. Like a fly you can’t get rid of. A sleep paralysis demon to an insomniac. A destroyed book to a bookworm. And I can't seem to stop thinking about it. It haunts me. It won't leave me alone. Every second of it replays in my head, tormenting me. Reminding me of how I screwed everything up. Reminding me how awful I am as a person. How I fucked up my relationship with him. Ruined everything we had built from childhood. Ruined everything to the point where we don’t speak as much as we used to. Sometimes it’s not even a simple goodbye after he drops me off. It sucks and the pain increases with it over time. Making it unbearable. I can’t imagine being able to hold onto such pain for so long without resolving the issue after some time. Whoever said pain decreases over time clearly hasn’t felt, seen or can understand the pain I feel. It hasn’t decreased or lessened its progressed and grown into something worse.

His face of disappointment and anger has been etched into my mind making it extremely hard to forget. Something I really want to do but it makes me feel like I have seemed to have lost the ability to forget things. I see it when I close my eyes to sleep, when I remove my eye makeup, In the dark when I wake up in the middle of the night and the vivid memory of that night looms over me. Cornering me, making me feel small as it towers over me, laughing at my vulnerability. At this point, I was internally asking and begging for forgiveness. Hoping it would make the pain go away but even I know it’s not that simple.

It’s become the reason I cry myself to sleep, the reason I don't trust myself getting close to anyone, the reason I fear speaking to adults out of fear of upsetting them like I did with him. My reason why I beat myself up when I make a mistake. If only I had waited a little longer than acting on impulse, we wouldn’t be in the position we are now. A place I fear we aren’t going to move forward from. A place I fear that will control our relationship that I'm trying so hard each day to rebuild and get back to where we once were.

I can see how it has impacted him as much as it has impacted me and his wife. It has affected everything around us. His relationship with me, his relationship with his wife, his relationship with other people. It’s been 3 years since it happened. He can’t seem to forget it either. Not that I blame him. I almost took everything away from him. All because I was scared, hurt and angry. 

I was blinded and clouded with anger that I didn't even think to stop and think about how this would impact everyone and everything around us. I didn’t think about what this could do to our future, our ability to build relationships with other people in case we fear we might do the same to them. I had no idea I could be so stupid and careless.

What I did isn’t easy to be forgiven for. Can you really forgive someone when they almost ruined your life? Almost taking everything away from you. Could you really find a way to forgive that? He says he has but I know he hasn’t. I can feel it when he looks at me. A living reminder of what I did. Walking around as if nothing is wrong. Externally, but internally I was destroying myself over it.

I hope he can forgive me soon. If that’s possible for us. I’ve tried multiple times to make it up to him. Doing everything I can to earn back his trust. Even if it’s just a little bit. That's more than I can account for. I try to do things that we used to do together that brought light to us, things we both had in common but not even that is enough. Doing things he wants without a single complaint even wasn’t enough for forgiveness. 

As much as I want to be forgiven it’s not something I can simply ask for. It’s nothing he can get permission for because I personally don’t think I deserve to be forgiven. I’ve indirectly tried to ask for forgiveness by making sure we don’t have another reason to have another slip up that could cause fatality within the family. Destroy us all completely. Now that would be something I don’t deserve to be forgiven for. 

I do my best each day to make him content and the furthest away from that place I can. Sometimes it doesn’t always work and we take a leap backwards but I try so hard on a daily basis. I hope he can see that. I wish I could simply walk up to him and ask for his forgiveness but it’s not that easy. If I did that it would be harmful to both of us and I don’t really want to remind him of such a low point in our lives. I think I've put him through enough already. Only in a fantasy world would that seem realistic and easy but this is real life therefore it’s unrealistic with an unpredictable outcome. An unpredictable, dangerous outcome to follow up a stupid approach. I’m not sure if I'm willing to take the risk.

Sure I’d be really appreciative if he forgives me because that could give me hope that we can move forward from my stupidness. Hope is all I can ask for right now regarding seeking forgiveness from him. All I can hope for is that at least some time in the future we are able to move past this and he can forgive me for what I did. And I hope we can rebuild our relationship. Go back to the father-daughter we once were when I was just a child. 

I swear if I could go back...

I would.