F is for Forgotten

In honor of this upcoming Christmas Season i give you....

Macauley Culkin handled his situation with remarkable aplomb in Home Alone, but that was just a movie.  Truth is, in real life none of us ever wants to feel forgotten.  After all, to be forgotten means that we never had any impact.  That the things we worked and sacrificed for weren't important or lasting.  That what we did didn't matter.


That we didn't matter.


So it is that one of the most difficult things i've had to face in this journey of recovery has been that feeling of being forgotten.  Being fired from my job and cast out of my church was a very difficult and painful experience.  And i've certainly spent a few nights crying into my proverbial beer over that.  But being completely ignored by everyone in leadership as well as most of the congregants after my departure has left a much deeper wound.

Perhaps the deepest wound of all has come from the Mog himself.  It is difficult to feel forgotten by someone with whom you thought you had a close relationship.  It is perhaps more difficult to deal with being willfully forgotten by that person.  It's not just that there has been no attempt at contact or communication.  It's not just that your memory is being allowed to fade.  

It's that you are being erased.

Of course the reason the Narcisisstic Mog finds it so easy to erase me from his memory is that to him this isn't personal.  After all, i was never really a person anyway.  I was just a tool to be used so long as it suited his desires and once my apparent usefulness had ended i was a waste of time and energy that was best thrown away; best forgotten.  In fact i'm quite certain that if i were to engage the Mog in a conversation regarding this, he would likely find my attitude quite inexplicable.

[yeah, this is a pretty accurate portrayal honestly]

Recently it occurred to me that perhaps the Mog had one final inadvertent lesson to give me.  While it is difficult to give the man credit for teaching me anything [really difficult], i do think there is a useful and powerful lesson for me to gain from all this.

The Mog knows that people that he is finished using are best removed from memory; best left in the past.  After all, what use are they to him anyway?  All they really stand to do is get in the way of where he wants to go.  They're nothing but dead weight.

Yes, sometimes some people are best left in the past and forgotten.  The Mog has certainly made it clear he has forgotten me.

Perhaps it's time for me to return the favor.