I find that one of the strongest desires a person can have is to simply feel understood.

Something interesting happened in the middle of the now-legendary "Who is this?" thread: I finally felt understood (thanks to Milton Roe).

And that felt very good. And, it got me thinking.

They say that acid does far more damage to the vessel that holds it than it does to the object over which it is poured.

Every time the matter of my early clashes with SlimVirgin comes up, I'm reminded that for nearly three years, I've been carrying around some fairly strong acid, in the form of a festering resentment for the people and events associated with that time.

Well, I'm tired of it.

SlimVirgin and I have been in contact privately, and I daresay we finally understand one another. We've reached a mutual recognition of the fact that our early reactions were atypical and made worse by a particularly unusual sets of circumstances that greatly colored our frames of reference. We assumed the worst of each other and that brought out something less than the best in ourselves.

We've forgiven each other and the issue is now, officially, put to rest.

Having said that, I think there is a lot to learn from that episode, and so, while I have no intention of pretending it never happened, I'm simply done dealing with it from the standpoint of assigning blame.

And I must say, it feels much better this way.