On Guilt

I'm writing this morning, as my mom and uncle are with my grandfather, taking him to go look at a retirement home apartment in the (highly over-optimistic) hopes that he will sign a lease to move there. The long story short, is that my grandfather WAS living with us, until about two weeks ago, when he was throwing a temper tantrum about not being able to use his particular phone in his room (THAT's a whole different story, boring, and not worth telling). He was acting like a complete spoiled child, and I dunno what came over me, but I just couldn't take it anymore. My temper had been seething just beneath the surface all day, and I can remember thinking, keep your mouth shut, keep your mouth shut, just don't say ANYTHING. Don't rise to the bait. Keep your head down. Keep your mouth shut. But I dunno, my foolishness and my irrascible temper took over, and I just started shouting at him. I think it took him by surprise, because he looked at me a minute, and then said in a threatening tone as he approached me, "What did you say?"
And I let him have it.
Everything that he had been doing and saying and everything and everyone that he had insulted in the last six months just seemed to throw me into a shouting match, which my mother quickly joined. A few moments later, my father walked in the door, saw my grandfather chewing me and my mother out, and, in un-typical dad fashion, got involved, and started shouting too.

A lot of things have happened since that Monday, and not all of them are worth telling, or appropriate information for the public in the world wide web. But the bottom line, is that the next day, my grandfather moved back out of our house, into his partially-deconstructed one. He had to leave behind all his furniture and TV and everything of course (I believe he's sleeping on a guest bed in his house now), but he got his clothes, all his papers, his computer, printer, and left. Mom was so furious at him leaving that she told him he could get movers to move his stuff back-we didn't have the time to spend another three weekends moving all his furniture- and that he would have to feed himself dinners now, because she didn't want to waste her evenings anymore going over to his house, picking him up, and having to take him back every night.
So basically, it had been this stand-off between the two of them, and now things are worse, and my uncle (i.e. the only person that my grandfather has any [though not much] respect for; younger people, black people, and women in particular are the most inferior of our human race) is here, and they're trying to get him out of his house, because he certainly can't stay there on his own while he's trying to rip wallpaper off the walls himself (and is ruining them in the process-another long story); there's a high chance he'll either fall off a ladder or give himself a heart attack. The other problem, is that he's always been a messy person (i.e. he's always had inferior, female secretaries to take care of his financial affairs and paperwork, and thus has never learned to do it himself), but in the last five years its become so disastrous that I don't think he pays a single bill on time anymore. Mom wants him in a home somewhere so that other people can keep tabs on those issues, and then report to particular authorities to potentially in the future demand legally that someone else manage his finances.

But I'm getting side-tracked. This blog post wasn't supposed to turn into a rant about the hell my grandfather has given my parents; it's about something that I'm struggling with, something internal apart from the fiasco with which my grandfather's arrogance and pigheadedness has presented us.

In the last week, I've been apologizing to anyone who would listen when the subject comes up. And every time, people just wave their hands dismissively at me and blame my grandfather instead for the present conflict. They think I'm being some kind of martyr; they don't get it that there's this guilt deep in my heart that knows the truth: this all started when I couldn't keep my mouth shut just one more time.
No one will believe me that it really was my fat, ugly mouth that sent him off the deep end; no one will just accept my apology and give me their forgiveness. They simply deny that I am at any sort of fault, and it is so frustrating to be stuck in a position of guilt with no way to apologize-really apologize-for your wrongdoing, or to at least correct it. No, I won't even go near my grandfather right now, because I'm sure my hot-hotheadedness that I so conveniently inherited from him will rise up again and I will undoubtedly just make things worse. And anyway, he believes I am COMPLETELY at fault for such blatant disrespect and even if I apologize to him for shouting, he'd never dream of apologizing to me for all the insults and accusations he's made against me. In fact, in my twenty-two years of life, I have no recollections of him ever apologizing for anything, to anyone. 
But I just don't know what to do with myself. This kind-of thing has been going on for ages. Mom and Dad are always just telling me that something's not my fault, that I'm not to blame, when I know in my heart that I am. I might not be at fault alone, but I do carry some of the burden. And they never let me apologize. They never accept my apology; they won't just say, "We know you messed up, but it happens to all of us, and we love you and we forgive you." When I haven't done well in school, their response is always that, "It's okay, we know you tried your best; we're still proud of you." But I DIDN'T try my best! I was lazy, and I know that; why can't you just accept my apology?


I think sin is the hardest to fight, when those authorities around you are the ones speaking it into your ears. It's easier to fight the little rebellious voice in your head; it's more difficult to argue with a real person in front of you whom you trust. The argument and the guilt inside you is a little softer, a little weaker, and a little easier to ignore. 


But don't I, better than anyone, know the truth of what's in and weighing on my heart?