Spite

Dear You,

I don't think I've ever written you a letter. Which makes sense, because I don't think we've ever actually talked meaningfully. That one time we attempted to talk, you didn't really hear me. You only heard what you wanted to hear, and we moved along with life hoping that that would be enough. But that wasn't enough. In fact, it made things much, much, much worse.

How I want to tell you that I blame you for my brokenness. How you made me feel powerless. How you made me weak. How you shamed me into silence just so I could keep the ugly and fake peace that I thought would keep my family together. How you made me so angry as to be rendered silent and festering and rotten. How, in the end, I was too weak to fight my demons and how eventually, I was too weak to want to live.

I hate you. With all my heart. With the same vitriol you used whenever you called me "Katrina", making my given name sound like a cuss word with each utterance. With passions I have yet to master. With real memories that beget made up memories that come as nightmares. With a strength I thought I was never capable of. With emotional resources that I have long thought of as bankrupt. With a fear that awakens the most ancient and primordial instincts to protect my child from you. 

Of all my triggers, you are the only one that has this much power left over me. I still have nightmares about you, about waking up in that house with you, and realizing that I am trapped and rendered mute all over again. One time, I was walking down the street, and I heard someone who sounded like you -- shrilly, high-pitched, with the same condescending tones. I wanted to look behind me to make sure that it wasn't you (for what on earth would you be doing in my neck of the woods anyway?), but I couldn't take the chance, and so I ended up running home.

Such is the effect you have on me. The mere memory, hint, possibility of you brings fear into my heart. And anger. So much anger.

But you know what? I'm so tired of being afraid of you. I'm so tired of being angry at you. Because despite the best efforts of the people who love me the most to shield me from you, to make sure you never have a say in my life again, you will always be in it because of who you are to the people I love the most. 

Your birthday is tomorrow, and I shall do my best to set these feelings aside, even for just a day. I will not wish that you have a happy one, for that would be disingenuous. I will not wish that returns be happy nor numerous. 

Instead.

On your birthday, I will allow myself to celebrate the fact that I lived, in spite of you. That I am living in spite of you. That I shall be happy in spite of you.

(To spite you, to spite you, to spite you...in spite of you, in spite of you, in spite of you.)

But I am so tired of hating you. So watch out, I shall stop hating you soon, because I've decided to use that energy to love myself, my daughter, and other people instead. And when that happens, what would become of you?

But that's not my problem anymore. 

Sincerely,

Katrina