Nice summary.

Forgiveness is not easy. Unfortunately, those who think forgiveness is easy fail to understand the trauma one has gone through.

I forgave someone. It didn't come from a constant thought of "I must forgive ______." It took some counselling and about a year of thinking about "why my life happened". As I was working on my computer on a totally unrelated project, a little voice came to me "You know, Dave, you have forgiven ________" . I answered "Yes, I have". It was very liberating. None of this experience was really forced; it just sort of happened; but there was some prep work done beforehand.

"Forgive and NOT forget" would be my motto. Fortunately my transgressor had passed away before I reached my state of forgiveness. I don't think I could have written him out of my life. But I think I would have handled him a lot better (for me).

I like your anecdote about the principal. Transgressors may think they get away with bad things. But often, justice does catch up with them. It must be worrisome for some of them to be waiting for justice.

It would be nice to have more justice, so that transgressors do not repeat. But our political world is not ready for that yet.