You

   Last Thursday night I was shopping. I leaned down to get something off the bottom shelf and I heard your voice snark in my ear, "Your ass looks huge when you lean down like that." And I stopped what I was doing and fixed the way I was crouched before I even realized what I had done. It's Monday morning, and it's still bothering me.
     For better or worse, in my head, there lives a community of voices. A collection of memories of things that people have said to me, good and bad. Truthfully....they're mostly bad. And yours is the loudest voice in there. The lead dissident. You.
     In all the years and all the life that has happened, it's still your voice that snarls in my ear when I'm feeling low. It's still you that tells me I'm not good enough, not pretty enough, not anything enough. Or conversely, you often tell me I am too much. When my heart is broken, as it was all that time ago, it's you who tells me that I deserve it. It's your words that haunt me when I'm feeling insecure.
     My heart was in pieces....in my head I think of a puzzle with missing pieces, you might be able to get away with a missing corner or some edge pieces, but my missing fragments were right out of the middle. I know that you took what I offered and I know that you gave me back loneliness and hurt and fear and shame.
     I wish that the me of today could sit the me of those days down and have a talk with her. She was so naive. I somehow managed to convince myself that if I helped heal the hurt in your heart, you would help fill in the gaps in mine. Instead, I think you made the holes wider and deeper. But I survived. I learned to be grateful for the things you taught me about myself. The truth about me. I learned to ignore the memory of the sound of your voice. I learned that fear is what drove you to lie and cheat. I learned that the things you said to me were more about you than me. I Spackled up the holes, some temporarily, some not, and I moved on.
     But once in awhile, you still whisper in my ear, as you did last Thursday. Once in a while, I forget that you never really knew me, and you never really liked me. You.
     So, on this anniversary of what should have never been, what is never going to be, let me tell you some things about me. Get to know me a little before you decide to tell me all about the things that are repugnant about me, because you were so wrong about me.
     I'm a great mom. You lied about that.
     I'm a great wife. You lied about that, too.
     I'm not a waste of any one's time. You were wrong about that.
     I'm funnier than you ever thought. You were wrong about that, too.
     I'm smart about a lot of things. Just not what you thought I should be smart about.
     I'm kind because I want people to count on me. Because I have needed someone to count on in my life, and you were not it.
     I WAS so grateful for the help I received. You had me convinced that I didn't deserve any one's kindness so I may not have expressed how grateful I was....but I still thank God everyday that he answered the prayers that he did, and sent the people he did, and blessed me the many, many ways that he did. So, you were very wrong about all of that, as well.
     I am worthy of kindness and love. You were mistaken.
     So....here it is. Your eviction notice.
     Maybe you had your reasons, maybe there's some excuse but I don't have time for any of that. I have a whole life that you wouldn't recognize me in, and I'm sure if you could you would pick it apart and analyze and make sure I know what areas I am failing miserably in, but I'm much too busy LIVING it to listen to any of that kind of talk.
     So, thank you for the lessons. They were valuable and hard-learned. They are all being passed on in a gentler, kinder way to my children. Perhaps I will save them the pain of learning some of those things the hard way. Perhaps that is, itself, the reason I had to learn them.
    You.