This little light of mine…

Letting go. February 21, 2008

I don’t write about this in detail for a few reasons. One, fear that the wrong people will see it. Two, once I get going it’s difficult to stop (aka this will be long, you’ve been warned.) Three, I keep hoping that if I pretend it doesn’t exist it will just go away.

But it fills my thoughts, conversations with friends, and sometimes keeps me up at night. It has filled my life, and I’m sick of it.

I hate M’s sister.

I’ve never hated anyone before. I’ve never wished anyone real harm, spent time plotting revenge, or just shuddered when someone’s name was mentioned. This girl…what can I say about her?

She’s a 13 year old trapped in a 30 year old body. She’s selfish, immature, malicious, sneaky, sadistic and pitiful. She pretends to be nice to your face but she will do whatever she can think of to make your life miserable in small ways. She’ll stab you in the back with a smile on her face and then look at you like “who, me??” She is the queen of doing little things that you wouldn’t notice if it didn’t directly effect you. She will poke you and poke you and poke you until you finally lose it and then she smiles, shrugs and is all “wow, she’s crazy huh?” Basically, she’s either insane or evil. Or both.

I have it ingrained in my brain that when someone does something wrong, they need to acknowledge it, to apologize. If someone hurts your feelings they should be sorry. They should admit wrongdoing. They should care. And I cannot be fake. I cannot pretend to be happy if I’m not. I cannot pretend to like you if I don’t. It is written all over my face, my tone, everything. I can be your best friend or your worst enemy, but I leave that choice to you. I believed I was right with every fiber of my being. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they didn’t turn on me so quickly. If it wasn’t so obvious that because I’m not blood I don’t matter the same way. That my feelings and the fact that in most situations I was the victim meant nothing.

I won’t go into detail about what has happened. I won’t list all the ways that she makes my life and M’s life miserable. I have wasted two years of my life on this girl…on wondering how anyone could be so malicious, feeling betrayed, and seething with anger.

I have gone from confusion to wishing she would disappear to relishing in this hate to planning little ways to get back at her to obsessing over the situation with anyone who would listen to crying to complaining to ranting to seriously considering therapy or anger management to reading inspirational quotations about dealing with difficult times to just wanting to put it all behind me. I just finished a book by Pema Chodron that I bought specifically for guidance on how to deal with all this anger in my heart.

I told a friend that I want to become more spiritual because I don’t want to be bitter or angry. That I got the Pema book, want to start meditating and learn how to push anger away and not let people effect me so much.

She said “honestly, I think this shows how much better of a person you already are. I mean, think about it. She’s just selfish and evil and genuinely pretends that she does nothing wrong when she must know that she does. And you feel so mean and guilty for disliking someone who is just not a good person at all. I mean you’ve talked about THERAPY for reacting the way any normal person would react to this girl. You need to just not like her and be fine with it.”

I seem to have this five year old mentality of just complete shock and incredulous awe that someone could purposely hurt someone or not like me when I’ve done nothing to deserve it. I remember visiting my cousin a few years ago and her three boys were playing, and the oldest one (kind of a bully) tripped the youngest one (who was four and adorable and the sweetest kid I’ve ever met to this day) and started laughing with the middle one. The four year old stood up, looked just so hurt and surprised that anyone could do such a mean thing on purpose and then laugh, and his face crumpled as he said, in the saddest little voice, “why would you do that??”

That’s basically been me for the past two years.

I had a talk with M the other night and very calmly told him how I feel and what I want. I want it to be okay for me to only  civil. I will say hi and bye and leave it at that. I don’t expect him to do the same. I will respect that she is his sister and that he has a right to have a relationship with her. But I do not think she is a good person, and every single time I give her the benefit of the doubt she makes me regret it. I won’t do what everyone else does and pretend that I don’t notice all of the shitty things she does. I accept that I have to live with her for another couple of years. You know that quote “if someone were to speak ill of you, live so no one would believe them”? That’s what I want to do.

His response? “I think that’s for the best. Just stop thinking about this. I mean, she’s not losing sleep over you.”

Truer words have never been spoken.

So for now, this is the where I stand:

I am grateful that M has stuck by me. I’m sticking by him too. I’m happy that I knew what it was like to be loved by my “inlaws,” even if it was only for a short period of time. I feel at peace, because I truly feel that I have done what I was supposed to. I do not like her. I do not have to. I can’t control her, but I can control me. I can choose how she affects me. And I say she stops affecting me at all now.

This will be the last time I talk about any of this. This post served as a way to get things out that were still on my mind. I’m over it, I’m done. I’m keeping her name out of my blog, mouth, mind and relationships.

I’m going to be happy again. I’m taking back control over my moods and thoughts and feelings. In short, I’m letting it go.