Forgetting & Forgiving
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I had grand plans for today to mix it up. After a string of more serious, pensive posts, my intention was to be silly this morning. To talk about our Christmas tree and our girls and their deliciously amateur decorating skills. You see, our girls worked very hard to dress one single branch of our vast Frasier Fir with about two dozen ornaments. Now that lucky branch – and its collection of “Christmas balls” – is dragging on the wood floor.
I also planned to talk about Husband, my strong and handsome man, who somehow managed to blow out his eardrum. He is on the mend now thanks to a cocktail of drops and antibiotics. In this post, I was going to be very clever and call Husband Little Drummer Boy. It would have been a funny post. I think you would have liked it.
But. That’s not today’s post. I can’t force it. I have to write about something else. Because that something else rattled about in my head all night long. I literally didn’t sleep because I was thinking about that something else.
That something else? I forgot my niece’s birthday. It was on Sunday. And I totally forgot it. Didn’t call. Didn’t send a gift. My niece is now four. As I am sure you remember, birthdays matter at that age. They are magical and majestic days. And I forgot her day. I didn’t even remember it yesterday. No, I had to get a phone call from Mom telling me that I missed it and telling me that my sister was rightfully very upset.
When I first realized that I forgot her birthday, I felt a stabbing surge of guilt. Immediately, I attempted to assuage that guilt by coming up with a string of excuses. I told myself that I was not the only one who forgot to call (which was true). I told myself that my niece lives in Chicago and so there wasn’t the same day-to-day chatter about parties and presents as there would have been if she lived here (which was true). I told myself that on her birthday I was tending to a feverish Toddler and in bed myself with a fever (which was true). I told myself that this is an exceedingly busy time of year (which is true). I told myself that my forgetting was in no way emblematic of how I feel about my sister or her little girl. (Again true.)
I decorated myself with excuses.
And then I called my sister. I emailed her too. I stumbled through a ceaseless and clumsy apology. She assured me that my niece is young and that she didn’t notice the lack of calls, that she will not remember this. My sister told me that she was the one who was sad about this. That she would get past it, of course, but that she was sad.
And as the night wore on, my own guilt evolved into old school sadness. A sadness that kept me up all night and brought me to this computer screen at 4:45am.
I am not writing this to ask my sister for forgiveness. Frankly, I am not sure if she reads this blog. I am not writing this to ask you for forgiveness. Frankly, I am not sure that is yours to give.
I am writing this to ask myself for forgiveness. For being totally flawed and totally fallible. For being so wrapped up in my own little words and my own little world, for being so fixated on the single branch of my own existence, that I missed a little girl’s big day.
______________________________
Have you ever forgotten someone’s big day? Have you forgiven yourself? Are you able to forgive yourself easily?
Yes. I opened the door to welcome my son’s godmother, in town from far away, on the morning of his christening. I looked in her eyes and said, (not “welcome!” not “can’t wait to christen this boy!” not “thank you for being his godmother!”) “Oh my God I forgot your birthday.”
To this day I feel awful about it.
It happens, but it’s horrible. And sort of a wake-up call, at least for me.
Good to hear that I am not alone. That these things happen. And, yes, this was absolutely a wake-up call. A big one.
Oh YES I’ve been there. And it was my niece too. And my brother blatantly told me I was a “bad aunt” because of it. (He has a way with words). I felt so terrible. It was so unlike me to forget. But I did. And your sister is so right, I’m sure your niece didn’t know the difference. I’m sure if I asked Hannah who DID call on her birthday the day after she’d have no idea.
I’m sorry you feel sad about it. I understand. But, take it from the bad aunt here… you’ll more than make up for it I’m sure!
Good to know that I am not the only “bad aunt” in this bloggy neck of the woods. And you are right. I will make up for it!
It does happen. To most of us. It will be ok. Truly. Sometimes I’m harder on myself than others are tho..
Thanks. I feel pretty strongly that this is an instance that I *should* be hard on myself. I know that life gets hectic and things do get lost in the shuffle, but I feel that these things really matter and should be remembered. I will stop beating myself up about it, but I need to hammer it home that this is just not okay first.
I am curious about the question of whether most of us are harder on ourselves than others are?
Aidan,
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Just make a more concerted effort remember next time; you can make a reminder for all your friends/relatives birthdays on a calendar. Even if your sister is temporarily sad from this, making your niece’s birthday special next year will completely make up for it and more.
Right after I realized that this happened, Husband and I sat down together and entered all family birthdays into the calendar. Yes, we should have done this before. But, hey, it’s a start, right?
Thank you for your comment. Not sure whether you are new here, but welcome if so!
I forgot it too
I feel terrible. And I can’t really come up with one excuse. I pride myself on being able to rattle off all of the birthdays in our family, including and especially nieces and nephews, but then I can’t manage to recognize the day when it rolls around. This is officially going with TY notes on my “must get better at this” list.
C – I agree. I think we should have a family meeting and diligently go through all the things on our “must get better at this” list. That list is a little too long for my liking
I look forward to this weekend…
I am quite possibly the worst son,brother,uncle,nephew and grandson of all when it comes to remembering birthdays. As far as excuses go I have none, but I do tend to forget about my own birthday. Does that count?
Do you forgive yourself when you forget your own birthday? I wonder if certain personality types are better at remembering these things or whether that would just qualify as another excuse?
Ack, Aidan, have you been in my brain???
Yesterday, at around 10 am, after I’d spent the morning working on my blog and enjoying other blogs, I realized, to my horror, that Miss D,’s birthday—my OWN kid—was the next day.
And I had done nothin.’ No cake planned, no presents. ZIP.
Now if you think YOU suck and felt bad, think of the guilt I felt. I am a horrible mother. I am a selfish, self-absorbed monster.
I hope you can forgive yourself (and I’m sorry but I think your sister kinda needs to chill). I am unable to be generous enough with myself yet to forgive…
Aidan, I will now confess the same transgression I e-mailed Kitch last night when I heard her story: yesterday I was making plane reservations and I had to confirm Tiny Baby’s birthday with Husband. Mother of the Year candidates, get in line behind me!
But I’m not sure knowing that the rest of us are fallible is what you need to hear. You probably already know that you are not alone in making mistakes. What I have trouble with – and what I suspect might be hard for many of us – is not only accepting my own fallibility, but also being willing to forgive myself for it, even come to expect it from time to time. Why is it so much easier to forgive others than to forgive ourselves? Is it an issue of control? For me, I think it’s tied into the trouble I have with forgetting. I dwell. I don’t forget. And then I find it hard to forgive.
Mothers of the Year unite! This happens. I am realizing this thanks to all of these thoughtful and honest comments. We do juggle so much in our minds and lives that it is hard to keep it all straight. I agree that part of the problem of self-forgiveness is that it is so hard to forget these mistakes and so we dwell and dwell some more. And in the dwelling, in the reliving, it is very hard to forgive.
Okay, must admit it. Your comment did make me feel better. I am sure you have whipped together a wonderful birthday for your girl and she had no clue that you remembered late in the game. You are neither horrible nor self-absorbed. Just human. (Maybe that means I am just human too?)
I must qualify that if there is any drama surrounding this forgotten birthday, it is coming from me. My sister was actually very mellow about it. I am probably the one who needs to chill and chill I will
I hope you find those fibers of forgiveness too…
Hmmmm. I may be in the minority here, and perhaps it is because birthdays are not a big deal in my family, but forgetting things — especially birthdays, anniversaries, etc. — happens, to everyone. I forget my mother’s birthday pretty much every year. My parents forgot one or two of mine. I didn’t call my sister to wish her happy birthday on Saturday until almost 6:00 p.m. And that’s all she got.
Now, I have a medical excuse for a poor short-term memory (a traumatic head/brain injury), so in order to remember 90% of things, I must write them down, and if I don’t, they are lost forever (that’s brilliant at work, by the way). So if I was hard on myself about forgetting things, I’d probably never come up from the crying fetal position. I’m over it. People forget. People ARE busy. And sometimes, oftentimes, there are more important things in that person’s life to remember than my stupid birthday. I realize it may be different for a small child, but your sister is right, she will not remember that Aunt Aidan forgot to call her on her fourth birthday. She just won’t. And even if she did, don’t you think there would be more important memories she would have of you? I think so.
Human brains are still much of a mystery scientifically. And most human brains are probably full of so much information that it’s inevitable we will all forget things. I think it’s time much more well spent, saying I’m sorry I forgot X, than it is dwelling on it and making yourself feel miserable. Because really? Making yourself feel bad is kind of selfish. It’s once again focusing your energy on YOU and YOUR feelings and not the other person. If you forget something, acknowledge it, move on and try to do something that will allow you to remember it more easily in the future.
Thanks for the slice of reality. I hadn’t thought about the fact that feeling bad about this was selfish, but maybe it is. Maybe I am making this all about me. Maybe that is what we bloggers do. Maybe we take experiences, experiences that involve others and render them in selfish strokes. I don’t know. I do know that I sat down to write this morning at a cruel hour when my family was still snoozing and this is all I could think about. So I decided to write about it. It’s really that simple. I had (and have) no agenda other than to live up to my crazy expectations of one post per day.
I genuinely thank you for your honest words, for putting this in perspective, for taking this conversation in a new, if unexpected direction. That’s what this blog is all about.
And I think part of catharsis for you is writing about it in your blog. I think blogs are, by nature, selfish. But that doesn’t make them bad. They are about self-expression and self-exploration. I don’t think those are inherently bad things. I do things that are selfish too. For example, I am a habitual Facebook status updater — that’s selfish because I want people to care about what I’m doing without having to reach out to ask them about what they are doing. It’s human nature to be selfish and I think that in some situations, we should not apologize or for bad for being so. While it may be selfish to focus so much on how you feel about this misstep, if that selfishness makes you feel better in the end because it subsequently causes you to do something like enter in all the birthdays so you don’t forget them next time, that can’t be bad, right?
That was a kind of witchy response by moi! I had to be up early for a 7:30 meeting today and apparently I am crabby.
No need to apologize. I saw your words as honest and raw, not as witchy or crabby…
oh hun, you are not alone… i forgot my mother-in-law’s birthday, my father-in-law’s birthday… sheesh, i could go on and on. most people who know me know not to expect much from me in terms of birthdays because i’m just not big on them. but still, when i have forgotten someone’s, especially a family member’s birthday, i have felt like dog poo afterwards.
forgiveness… especially forgiving oneself… that is a HARD one for me to do. perhaps expectations i have for myself are too high and need to be reevaluated. perhaps i don’t let things go as easily as i should. but forgiving myself, regardless of what it’s for, is something i most definitely struggle with.
(((HUGS))) don’t beat yourself up about this.
Thanks, Nic. The thing is, the sad thing is, that my family *is* big on birthdays. We have always made a relatively big deal about birthdays and, yes, things have gotten more complicated as we have scattered a bit geographically and our family has grown, but I still see these as excuses.
I do think that this post is about something bigger and more universal than one forgotten birthday. It is about (as you rightly point out) self-forgiveness. Why is it often so much harder for us to forgive ourselves than it is to forgive others? A big, bad question that deserves its own post in my estimation.
I think self-forgiveness is hard because we are the ones always repeating our mistake in our head. In reality, very few people care about our mistakes as much as we do. I am one of those people who NEVER forgets when someone has gotten upset with me. Over the years, I have discovered that probably 1% of those people actually remember the time they were upset with me. It’s just not realistic for others to focus on our mistakes as we do. They have their own mistakes they are focusing on. We relive them often, and that makes it hard.
@Niki couldn’t have said it better myself.
As you can see by all the comments here – You are not alone! Everyone makes this type of mistake. The trick is forgiving yourself and moving on. It reminds me of some sage advice I received from a previous boss. I made a huge $3000 mistake that the company was going to have to absorb. I went to the owner of the company about it to confess my sins. I felt terrible. I was a college student and had no resources to fix the problem myself. When I was done telling him how sorry I was he smiled. He asked, “Is this the first mistake you’ve ever made?” I laughed and said, No. He asked, “Do you think it’ll be the last mistake you’ll ever make?” I laughed again, No, unfortunately. He then said, “Then learn from this and move on.” I have carried this with me and it has helped me in many situations.
Jane, thank you for sharing your story about your mishap at work. It seems your boss had a good attitude about such things. And the truth is that being human entails making mistakes. So now I am heeding his advice – and yours – and trying to learn from this and trying to move on. Isn’t it amazing to have a story, a powerful anecdote from the past, that we can carry with us to whip out in tough situations?
I have a long list of things that I sometimes beat myself up over. I am, my biggest critic.
I think many of us, if not most of us, are our own biggest critics. I wonder why that is? Is it that we are so much more focused on ourselves and our transgressions, however minor, than other people are?
I think that it is natural for us to be far more aware of little things about ourselves because most of these things are little.
I notice things in pictures that no one else does, the tiny stain on my shirt or that my smile looks crooked.
It is only a bad thing if we let it prevent us from living our lives.
I’m usually not one to forget birthdays (I always make a note to write down all important birthdays in my planner months in advance) but I remember a glaring exception.
I remember during my senior year of high school I completely forgot that it was my best friend’s birthday– a very close friend I had known for 6 years, who I wished happy birthday to and gave a present to every one of those six years. I felt so ashamed when I arrived at school that morning and our other friends showed up with presents and wellwishings.
I made excuses for myself too– I was in the midst of heavy exam preparation. But I don’t think you need to be too hard on yourself. Not excuses should be brushed aside. Our first priority is to take care of ourselves– because if we can’t do that, we won’t be in a position where we can effectively care for the ones we love.
Forgetting your niece’s birthday doesn’t mean you love her any less! My mother always tells me that special treatment one day during the year is not as important to her as our love, kindness, and thoughtfulness through the entire year, and I certainly agree.
I like your mother’s take on these things. And, yes, it is true that our affection for someone is displayed over days and years and not evidenced only on a single special occasion. All of this is true and yet it doesn’t quite take that sting of guilt away. But I am realizing by reading your comment and so many others that these things happen to the best of us.
We forget. Life keeps us busy and our lives are always more important. We are inherently selfish.
That doesn’t make us *bad* though.
Intent goes a long way. I’m sure your sister knows that you didn’t intend to forget.
I also believe allowing goes a long way too. You allowed your sister to be sad – instead of attempting to stifle it. Sometimes, it just takes listening to lessen the severity of the emotion.
Now, forgive yourself and go get her something fun!
We are all inherently selfish, aren’t we? All of us. Not just bloggers, right? I do think that as our lives grow more and more complex and more and more is demanded of us, it becomes easier to forget about things outside the immediate periphery of our existence. I think you are right that intent matters. But so does action. Or in this case, lack thereof.
Very interesting point re: allowing. I never consciously thought of “allowing” my sister to be sad, but I can see how there is something redemptive in letting this situation organically evolve rather than trying to control its direction by stifling her emotions.
I might have to work a bit on the forgiveness part, but I will certainly get her something fun!
If I tallied up every time I’d forgotten something or been late or let something fall through the cracks, I’d need a couch full of guys in suits with HP calculators to share the calculations. That wasn’t the case often before kids; it’s certainly been the case after.
Your sister will certainly forgive and you’ll forgive yourself. We carry a maze of details in our heads when we have families – it’s not always the mother, but usually. We’re walking around with a brain brimming over with schedules, task lists, assigned roles, and no slack. Also no Gantt Chart, Pert Chart, or perky (male, sweet-cheeked) assistant to help keep everything on track.
It goes with the territory. (Now be sure to get some sleep. You’ve got a drooping branch to attend to, diplomatically!)
“We carry a maze of details in our heads when we have families – it’s not always the mother, but usually. We’re walking around with a brain brimming over with schedules, task lists, assigned roles, and no slack.”
Thank you, as always, for your very wise words. I agree with you. I agree that the details are unrelenting, but I have to say that this still feels like a sad excuse for me. I care so much about my family and feel that details that relate to my family should trump all others. But, alas, we are humans. Sleepy, imperfect humans.
Off to get some sleep per your advice and to tend to that proverbial drooping branch…
I haven’t done this exact thing before but there are definitely other transgressions that come to mind.
I’m not sure if you feel this way, but whenever I’ve been in this kind of situation I feel like I’ve received extra criticism specifically because I’m always blogging and writing about my life — like, “Of course Claire forgot about that thing. She was too busy writing about herself.” This always makes me feel HORRIBLE, but even when I do forget something/somebody important I just can’t believe that it’s really because I’m too self-involved. Sometimes we just forget!
Thank you for this insightful comment. What’s interesting is that I don’t feel like I received any extra criticism because I am a blogger, but I am beating myself up more I think because I am a blogger. I look back to Sunday, my niece’s birthday and I published a post here and responded to several comments. I spent so much time on ME, my blog, my thoughts and didn’t think of a little girl I love. This raises a bigger question I think, namely whether by becoming bloggers we are setting ourselves up for harsher self-criticism?
Try to forgive yourself! Sometimes things like this happen… to the best of us. I’ve forgotten my best friends birthday, had to double check my baby’s birthday (I say because our anniversary is close and I get the two mixed up…doh…)
It’s always a good reminder though to take ourselves less seriously and look to the calendar for help
Yes, these things happen. To all of us, it seems. I think you make an important point that because we have limits, and are fallible by nature, it is okay to depend on calendars and other memory aids. I am realizing that such dependence is simply essential.
Aidan-
The moral of this story for me is that you remembered and felt guilt. Healthy guilt. You tried to rationalize, to decorate yourself with excuses (how profound!), yet in the end you recognized there was no excuse. It was an accident. Pure and simple.
I have become quite the forgetful person when it comes to birthdays this year. I think I might have forgotten EVERY SINGLE SIBLINGS BIRTHDAY. Oh, AND MY PARENTS. Yep. That is 11 birthdays. 11!
I blame pregnancy and a new baby. Perfect excuses, right? : )
I think pregnancy and brand new baby are in fact the perfect excuses. Thanks for your sentiments here. I do think there is a difference between uncontrolled guilt and healthy guilt. There are, in my estimations, things that we should feel guilty about. And it is this breed of guilt, I think, that helps us alter future behavior and become better people.
My answer to the previous post. Would work ever so well in this place too. You’re human sweetie. It happens. And the way I see it the only one beating up you – is you. And knowing you, you will make it up to her and chalk it up as a lesson learned. (Hugs)Indigo
Yes, I am very very human. (Is it possible to be very human? Unlikely.) In many ways, i think life is a series of mistakes and lessons, right? I just don’t want that reality – the fact that life’s road has irremovable bumps – to become something I use over and over to rationalize inappropriate or inexcusable behavior.
Yes, I have forgotten important birthdays. But all I can do is apologize, make up for it, and forgive myself. You are indeed human, full of both teeny tiny perfections and imperfections. Please forgive yourself.