If you want the nice answer, it works well enough. I haven't forgiven him but I've tried to make peace with the situation; I've found things worth living for in this life, and it isn't fair to myself to deny myself of the opportunity or the ability to live fully in this life because of what I did in my past life.
If you want the honest answer, however - I still haven't found a way to make the constant awareness that I deserve to die for what I've done subside. The fact that it was in my past life and not this one honestly matters very little to me; countless lives were destroyed because of what I've done, and no matter how I've changed or what has happened in the time since then, I don't deserve to forget that. I don't believe I deserve the second chance I've been given, and I've told Retrospec in exactly as many words that once they're done restoring my world they're welcome to destroy me if they so choose, because I'll have no further purpose and perhaps the act of restoring the world in this life can serve as at least partial atonement for everything I did to it in my past life.
I think the reality of the situation is that I know that if I were to die, or remain guilt-laden and self-flagellating for the rest of my life here, however long that life may be - it isn't going to change anything that happened in my past life. It won't bring anyone back, it won't fix anyone's lives, and it won't make anything better. The most that may happen is that I'll die on behalf of a world that will neither know nor care that I died in the first place. For now, I just settle with the knowledge that if that world can be restored, I'll do so. If certain people from my world turn up alive here, I believe they have a right to decide what happens to me beyond that point, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. For now, I have people that would apparently be very upset with me if I died, and I see no need to cause them pain for no reason other than I decided I couldn't handle living with the memories of things I technically didn't do.
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If you want the honest answer, however - I still haven't found a way to make the constant awareness that I deserve to die for what I've done subside. The fact that it was in my past life and not this one honestly matters very little to me; countless lives were destroyed because of what I've done, and no matter how I've changed or what has happened in the time since then, I don't deserve to forget that. I don't believe I deserve the second chance I've been given, and I've told Retrospec in exactly as many words that once they're done restoring my world they're welcome to destroy me if they so choose, because I'll have no further purpose and perhaps the act of restoring the world in this life can serve as at least partial atonement for everything I did to it in my past life.
I think the reality of the situation is that I know that if I were to die, or remain guilt-laden and self-flagellating for the rest of my life here, however long that life may be - it isn't going to change anything that happened in my past life. It won't bring anyone back, it won't fix anyone's lives, and it won't make anything better. The most that may happen is that I'll die on behalf of a world that will neither know nor care that I died in the first place. For now, I just settle with the knowledge that if that world can be restored, I'll do so. If certain people from my world turn up alive here, I believe they have a right to decide what happens to me beyond that point, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. For now, I have people that would apparently be very upset with me if I died, and I see no need to cause them pain for no reason other than I decided I couldn't handle living with the memories of things I technically didn't do.