Dear Us,

We need to talk.  I don’t know exactly how to start this conversation, but let me first say that I’m sorry I have not been your friend for ages and beyond. We learned early what it was like to be neglected and abused, and I didn’t know what to do with that, so I took it out on you.  To be honest, I still don’t know what to do with it all, and I know I’m still punishing you for things that were beyond your control.  

An aggregation of labels binds us together and places us under a diagnosis we’ve fought against endlessly.   I understand that the coping skills we use are out of desperation to slay the pain that never surrenders, but they only work to muffle the pain, not to end it.  We are hijacked by our suffering and our past, and how can we escape to a place where it’s safe?  There are no safe place, even the ones we fabricate in the respective corners of our mind where we retreat, only to continue the battlement against our soul.  Nothing is safe.  

I know you blame me for why happiness eludes us, but what do you expect when all you offer me are negative coping mechanisms?  When I plug one hole in our pain, we have new holes jabbed in us, springing up the latest memories or sorrows that can not be patched.   I’m not sure people realize how bad we’re struggling with this life because my face recites happiness despite our internal narrative.  

Despite the fact that my fractured mind travels and settles in lands it shouldn’t, I would agree that I know what to do and how to cope when things get rough for us, but I’ve either been too dejected, too scared, too overwhelmed to do anything other than whimper in a corner and wait for it to pass without being seen.   

As I knew they would, anger and sadness compete for the last word.  Two seperate voices, two seperate agendas.  Apologies never mitigate what we do to each other.  

I don’t know how to end this letter to you.   So many thoughts, words, apologies, pleas, and cries still go left unsaid on both sides.   I want to so much to give you what I’ve never given before, but the thought makes my words die by fear.  

If I were you, I would want someone to tell me what happened  wasn’t my fault.  If I were you, I would want someone to beat the abusers senseless, torture them, and leave them for dead.  If I were you, I would want someone to tell me I don’t need to be forgiven for being small and innocent and a naive child who was taken to worlds out of her control.  If I were you, I would want someone to gently sit me on their safe lap, hold me tightly until all the tears were squeezed out, and then kiss my forehead and tenderly shoo all the boo-boos away.  

But I’m not you.  Never been that strong.  But I’m going to try to love you until the sun runs out of orange, until the oceans’ waves fall asleep, and the singing birds lose their voice.  

And I will never stop.

Becca

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