Forgive and forget?

"So I should pick and chose whom I should forgive?" she asked. It was another turn in what had been a complicated and difficult interchange between us. She has her own reasons for holding high the banner of forgiveness (which, after all, is an essential and central part of Christianity.) And she was asking (actually, I am paraphrasing her words) an important question: do we not follow a faith where unconditional and immediate forgiveness is expected of us?
The problem arises not in forgiveness, as tricky as that might be in itself. It is what we should do next, after forgiving. We  can note that, whenever Jesus forgave, He always did so in context: go, but don't do it again. You got into this because you didn't know. Make reparations to those you have hurt. Get yourself back on a better spiritual path. In other words, Jesus put a sort of price tag on forgiveness: personal accountability
There wasn't anything He  couldn't accept. The infamous "unforgivable sin" is commonly seen as one where the person saw no sin, did not see a need to be forgiven. He hung around sinners, tax collectors and other people frowned upon. In fact, He seemed to prefer their company.
But what  of us? There are those who repeat the same  dysfunctional patterns over and over and over. Yes, we are told to forgive "seventy times seven," a metaphoric number of that time for "infinite." But do we have something we cannot let go of? Many have wounds so deep they seem sure to never heal.
Saying we forgive in such situations may seem appropriate but not always realistic. To quote the Bard, "My prayers fly up, my thoughts remain below. Prayers without thoughts do not to heaven go." Or must forgiving and forgetting go together? What if we claim forgiveness, but forgetting remains out of reach?
And what if the one we must forgive denies any such? Or has passed beyond any point where direct forgiveness is  moot?
Maybe we need to look differently at forgiveness? Maybe it need not be a way of absolving someone of what was done but a way of setting ourselves free? Too often forgiveness (as Jesus hinted in His Prayer) becomes a continuation of the same tug-of-war that that sin/trespass/debt was to begin with?  But if we are to let go, move on, stop this spiritual power struggle, then we need to use words of forgiveness. "I forgive" becomes "I'm free of this."
And we must do as  much for ourselves as those who hurt us, Too often those who have been through a traumatic time will take on the responsibility, as though the abused child "asked for it," or the rape victim was dressed wrongly, or the soldier caught in a firefight should somehow have prevented it. True, we do have responsibility for much, but no one willingly steps in harm's way.
To answer the original question: yes, we choose when and whom to forgive. Not that we are picking whom to forgive, but that we are choosing. Not some  automatic unconditional, universal forgiveness; that's God's job. But making a personal decision, one that we may revisit over and over.