By the time we’re old enough and wise enough and experienced enough to forgive our parents and ourselves for the entirety of our lives well… You know the rest already it’s usually too late and wouldn’t have done any good anyway. But something more must be said. Am I the only person who realized (too late to tell them,) that my parents weren’t all that special, nor was/am I, regardless of how special and important I like to think of myself as being? Am I alone in understanding, too late, that my view of myself and our views of ourselves likely start with that look in their eyes staring at us uncomprehending, in bafflement and confusion, at something we’ve said or done that makes no sense to us either? Here’s a secret: my parents may have understood, but like your parents, they probably didn’t, that there is no self-actualization. There is no enlightenment. These are words we tell ourselves and we hope somehow fit us. But we are deluded if we think we can apply these terms to our lives. Our parents before us, and all the parents who have come and gone for all time, by becoming dead, merely get a chance to be forgiven and like us, to forgive ourselves, for all the shit we did that’s unforgivable.