J-,
I thought I was done. But here I am, writing to you after months. The thing is, I still can’t hate you. Don’t misunderstand, I hate how you treated me, how you felt you were entitled to hurting me because you’d had a bad day, you were tired or frustrated, you were on your period. I hate how you used what was modeled for you as an excuse as if you were not an adult and therefore, capable of making different decisions, healthier decisions, kinder decisions. “I am my father’s daughter,” was a favorite of yours even as you could see his behavior as hurtful and cruel. You, who so often were there to help your mother pick up the pieces of her broken heart, refused to see how you were inflicting the same pain on me.
I thought about you the other day. I imagined what it might be like to run into you in town, how you would react if you saw me on the arm of a man. How you would take it as a personal attack that I don’t still call myself a lesbian. I imagined the hateful, angry conversations you would have with your parents, the barbs you would exchange, your father’s choice words. I wondered if he would think I’m a whore too, like he once said of his other former daughter in-law. As I imagined all of it, I was not hurt. I wasn’t even sad. I was amused. It was entertaining to watch three hurt and hurtful people talk about someone else who wasn’t in the room, who had no control over their happiness, as if their choice to remain unhappy and unhealed was somehow her fault. I might have pitied you before. I almost certainly would have felt badly that your life will never include a love that comes from a place of peace, that you will never know how wonderful it is to love someone fully, as your authentic self, and not be constantly afraid to lose them. You will never know a life of your own, without another person to give it meaning, or fill it. You will never know how wonderful it feels to be terrified to start a new chapter, and then do it anyway, and the joy that comes from knowing that it was worth it, even if it didn’t go the way you’d hoped. You’ll probably argue that you do know. You’ll say you were terrified. But, what new chapter did you start? It’s been nearly a year since you moved out, and we sold the condo. In that year, I’ve moved to my own apartment, fallen in love, gotten my heart shattered, and come back to my mom’s to reassess and recoup some financial losses. I’m sure you’ll see that last bit as an indication of failure on my part. To you, it will be proof that I couldn’t do it on my own. I’m sure you have more money than I do. But I have a life. And I wouldn’t trade it for every penny you’ve got saved up. What a pity to have a sturdy and stable safety net, and be too scared to test it. So you’ll stay where you are, choosing misery over contentment because it is familiar. You’ll choose routine because it isn’t scary, it doesn’t challenge you. It doesn’t make you admit all the places you need to be stronger. It allows you to stay deaf and blind to your own inadequacies.
I would pity you. I would hate you.
But it’s more energy than I want to spend.
You’ll see all of this as hateful rhetoric, aimed specifically at your heart. You’ll see all of this as an angry missive that I wrote only to hurt you. Because you aren’t capable of imagining someone speaking from a place of peace. You can’t fathom someone speaking truth kindly. It isn’t the speaker who hurts you. It’s the truth you can’t stand.
I hadn’t intended to write any of this. Again, I thought I was done. I thought that my need to be heard had been satisfied, that I had moved past my want to tell you the impact you made, as if it would change anything. As if I could somehow make you see yourself as anything other than the victim. But then, as it often does, the universe stepped in. A video popped up and suddenly, there were all the words I wanted to say. None of them angry or cruel. None of them biting. Just honest and real. I transcribed it because sometimes editing isn’t necessary. Sometimes, the universe gives you actually the right words, and all I had to do was write them down.
“You made me feel like I needed to be a better person, but I was the better person. I still am the better person. And I don’t know what kind of person you are now, but I hope you’ve become a better person than you were. Good people don’t make good people feel like bad people. They don’t convince kind people they’re unkind, and compassionate people that they lack empathy. Good people don’t take advantage of good people, or anyone for that matter. You turned my trust in naivety. You made a strong person weak, and you did it all with your words. So, now it’s my turn to do it with mine.
I’m a good person, and good people don’t make other people feel bad about themselves. So, I’ll leave the words I want to use to describe you out of this and tell you the truth about who I actually am instead of letting us both believe I’m the person you think you reduced me to. I am headstrong and willfully self-assured. I’m fiercely loyal, but you know that already. I am smart, and kind, and a good person. Of the two of us, I’m the bigger person. The stronger person. The freer person. The better person.
I am a better person than you.”
Regards,
P-
