Clearing the air...

Day 7

Open message to an asshole:

I've had something on my mind for a few days now...  I've been told that someone's cold and callous treatment toward me, over the last 24 years, was a way of getting back at me, that someone's 24 years of neglect toward our child was a way of getting back at me.  See... in order for a tactic like that to work, one actually has to care or notice that he or she is being treated coldly or callously. All I knew is that you were gone and that I was glad. I love that you've expended your energy toward someone who simply didn't give a shit, never had, and never would.  See... one would actually have to care that you're gone.  How can that be when I'm the one who left?  All I remember is walking away with a huge sigh of relief.  No more punches to the face, kicks to the stomach, or having my valuables burned in front of me out of sheer cruelty.  Why would I mourn the loss of any of that?  Why would I care that someone like that wasn't around?  For so many years I thought what happened to me didn't matter anymore, and what mattered was my son who didn't have a father.  I see now how wrong that was.  My son didn't need an example like you in his life. Because of your absence and the lack of your influence, he is one of the kindest, most decent human beings that one could ever hope to meet.  He actually cares about people.  My writing this is getting the last little bit of it out of my system.  See...  having these things brought to my attention really made something more clear to me, something I've been needing to express.  In your attempt to hurt *me* by your coldness and callousness and your neglect of your child, you've harmed no one other than yourself by carrying around this ugliness for nearly a quarter of a century.  It makes me laugh, to be honest.  In order to hurt someone, there's this implication that the person being hurt has actually ever given a shit about you.  I realized a long time ago that I didn't really. Not ever.  Singularly and solely because, when I was so young, I didn't truly understand what that meant.  My marriage to you was not the most significant relationship of my life, and your "damage" was not the most emotionally harrowing experience of my life.  From the wreckage of that relationship, I grew up and moved on.  I'd assumed you'd done the same and had worked my way into a feeling of indifference toward you and the past, which was a change from the blinding hatred toward an emotional and physical bully.  I'm privileged to learn that you have not grown up, you have not changed a bit.  For a minute, it threw me for a loop because...  what really happens when the tools or thoughts with which you move past an issue prove to be false?  I had the epiphany, though, that it doesn't matter how you get past something as long as it's done in a healthy way.  What matters is that you got past it.  So, to be clear...  your coldness hasn't bothered me in any way, so, in closing, I'd say... Get over yourself.  Maybe you should try rebelling against people by being what they don't expect.  Some don't expect you won't ever be more than a raging shit bag.  ;-)