Forgiveness

"I forgive you". Three little words, easy to say but damn hard to mean.  Sometimes in life we are all faced with situations where we swear we can never forgive.  A cheating spouse, lousy parent, hurtful words or worse.  Women all the time swear up and down, "if he ever cheated on me that would be it."  And alot of the times it is.  So why is forgiveness so hard?  Why is it in our nature to carry all of our burdens on our hearts, weighing us down and making it impossible to move on?  I mean, if you are doing something and it hurts, you stop doing it...so this really makes no sense.  It takes more energy to hate someone for something they did than to just lay it down and forgive.
Up until recently, I despised my mother and stepfather for the things they had done...Lord knows that's a long list.  I have taken a long look in the mirror and realized that hating them was only hurting me.  My mother, for example, has done more wrong than most.  She has been more hurtful than anyone in my life.  I could continue to hate her, but in truth I can't.  I have to believe that people can change.  I have to believe that even the most evil, awful person can change for the better.  I have to believe this because if I don't it means that I can't change.  It means that I can't walk a path in life that is better than the one I set myself on.  I have to believe that one is not defined by mere actions, but by the ability to overcome and grow from those actions.  I have to believe that a handful of years is not the entire story of someone's life...because if that isn't the case, I'm screwed.
More on this later, I"m too tired to think.