When I was 5 years old, my best friend moved into the house next door. I spent as much time at their home as I could.
Did you notice? Could you tell that it took me longer to come back each time you called my name?
When I was 6, in my tiny body, legs dangling off the countertops to block the silverware drawer,
You used a glass of water to make a whirlpool
and an almond, to show me how my mother was sucking me into her side of the story,
turning me against you.
Did you know then that you were talking about yourself? Do you remember that? Did you see the empathy in my eyes, even then?
Even then?
When I was 8, growing up in the church had meant a baptism.
I asked my mother if someone else could do it.
She didn't want to hurt your feelings.
Dressed in all white, I felt as clean as blood.
After it was over, I couldn't sit still and when people came to congratulate me,
as if I'd done something
they found me outside playing football with the boys,
in a white dress and small white heels.
Were you proud of me then? Could you feel me shrinking, my wrists tense in your balled fists as you took me below the surface? I did not come up the same.
When I was 10, when we moved the first time, mom stopped going to church. A few months later, she was carried to the mini-van
as she talked about the tree stumps in California that reminded her of giant smarties, ants crawling up and down the stumps, the pieces of candy.
We sat in the waiting room, surrounded by the sick and injured
silent tears forever staining my cheeks, my shirt, my soul.
They told us it was an accident.
Do you remember that? Did your heart stop dead in its chest, the way mine did as I saw her eyes roll back in her head? As my world crashed down around me? Did you see the reflection of you in her glossy eyes?
When I was 16, I drove as much as I could. I even rode to school while you yelled at me, from 5:30-5:47am until you went in to work, smiling and laughing with coworkers
and I went into the bathroom before class
turning on all the hand dryers so no one would hear me try to reconcile with being, allegedly, the source of all of your problems
When I couldn't drive, I rode my longboard like I was surfing through the ocean of my thoughts, often drowning beneath the waves.
Do you think screaming at me helped? Do you believe that it really was all my fault?
When I graduated high school, I had two ceremonies, and asked you to come to only one. I knew you'd ruin one of them, so the other I kept for my self. Your seat was empty both nights--so much for setting a healthy boundary. I moved out the next day.
Do you wish you would've shown up? Do you regret it? It wasn't new, but it still stung.
When I was 19, I called you and told you that I missed you. As I pressed the red button, I told myself that I would never call first again.
Do you recall that call? Do you even care? Did you mean it when you said you wanted us to have a better relationship? Pretty words do sound nice, in the moment.
When I was 22, you and Mom came to visit me for the first time since I left, and you yelled at me (about car tires). I told you that you could meet us separately and that I'd drive my Mom to dinner. You didn't talk to me the rest of the night. You screamed at my mom for an hour on the drive home.
Do you have the capacity to look in the mirror? To see yourself, and not react the same way you treated me? My family? So much for The Golden Rule we were taught growing up in your household.
I am now 24. I had to put my dog, my best friend down three weeks ago. I didn't tell you, but I know you had heard--because my mom drove 13 hours straight with my siblings, through the night, because she needed to be with me, to be there for me. You haven't even sent a text. Honestly, I wouldn't care if you did.
Did you feel anything when you heard the news? Are you able to let yourself?
I begged you to treat me like a person, once. When that was too much to ask for, I resurrected myself
Put the pieces in a suitcase, to bring to a garden in a new place, and I walked away.
The front door in my rearview mirror will always be one of the most cherished gifts I've ever given myself.
And how good it feels to
set
that
down.
a.b.