The Right Questions

When I'm bored I often frequent websites that are great time wasters. One of them being stumbleupon. I've found some cool crap because of that website. One page I stumbled upon had cool pictures with questions that would get the viewer thinking. This particular blog is going to focus on two of those thought provoking questions.
1. What was the most defining moment in your life during this past year?
and
2. What's the number one change you need to make in your life in the next twelve months?

One looks back, the other looks foward.

I get a feeling that this blog is going to be really hard for me. To figure out what to say, how to say it, and how to be truly honest with myself and the world.

Number one... the most defining moment... My first thought is Kenya and all the things I experienced and learned while there and even after returning home and how to go about living "regularly" again. But I wonder if there isn't some other moment from the past fifty-two weeks that can be seen as significant and life altering.

I recall a conversation I had recently, in the last two or three days. "I wonder if instead of forgiving people, you actually forget about the situation and put it behind you." (basic paraphrase) The old phrase "forgive and forget"... I always say that I am good at that. Or at least the forgiving part. I forgive and then I move on. But this person brought it to my attention that perhaps I'm not actually forgiving, but I'm accepting it as it is and forgetting it so I don't have to deal with it. This thought kinda freaked me out at first. And I guess if I'm honest, it still does. I think there is a lot of truth behind their observation of me. If I look back on certain situations, it is hard for me to remember certain things... I'm starting to realize that I block out negative circumstances/memories in order to move on and not truly deal with them.
If this is the case, I have some serious work to do! I can't go around "forgiving" people when really I am just choosing to forget what they did or said. If I really think about it, do I truly know what it means to forgive? I can look back on significant moments in the last few years and still feel a slight bitterness, sadness, or whatever else. Have I not truly forgiven? Some of this I thought I dealt with long ago. Part of me wonders if there is still work to be done. Ughh I hate this.
(Even as I finish this up, I feel as if there could be a few more defining moments in the last year... perhaps I shall write another blog about that later.)
   
So I guess this kind of leads me to question two... This is something I need to change in the next year. Or at least work on, or learn or something. I need to learn what it is to truly forgive and I need to learn how to STOP avoiding conflict. This scares the crap out of me. It's a conflict in itself. Conflicting the way I normally do things. Well this should be fun.