To forgive or forget? A rant.

I'm a type of person who holds grudges.  Now, I don't mean holds grudges as in I will hate you forever if you forget my birthday (quite the opposite actually), but I mean that I will in essence forgive you for your transgressions, instead, I will forever remember it and generally bring it up from time to time in order to make you feel bad.  I wondered for a while why I do such a thing.  I mean, all it really does is make me seem like an ass who blows things out of proportion and alienates people.  Then I realized that I do it in order to not make the same mistakes twice.  I believe I have had my fair share (like most people I imagine) of being used for one thing or another , and I would simply like to never go through that again.  For instance, why would I re-friend an old friend if they always belittled me or forgot a prioritized commitment in order to feed someone's need for attention?

I probably have a facade of forgiveness because I have a need to be accepted.  We all do, which is probably one of the reasons why we do the dumb things to alienate certain people in the first place.  We find someone who seems to accept us, and cling to it, not realizing that putting someone on a pedestal is just as bad as pushing someone off one.  We assume that we are in control because after all, we can let go anytime.  Yet, sooner or later, someone figures out that this person is not your bitch, you are theirs.

Sometimes I feel like if I simply changed myself I would be able to truly forget, then I remember that I don't want to forget.  Forgetting something doesn't mean it didn't happen, just that you didn't want it to.