It's been a ride...
Waking up to a notification that this still exists and has for 20 years was a bit of a blast.
I heard recently that if you look back on your adolescent self and don't feel cringe then perhaps you haven't really grown. In all honesty, I barely recognize her. I know that she was me but she was a mess. She was in survival mode from the age of 12, fractured into various identities as a way to dissociate and make sense of a life that in her stunted mind made no sense. She craved love and didn't know what that was supposed to look like. She confused friendship for attraction and conflated respect for destiny. We, the pieces and selves, wouldn't change a moment but sometimes wish it could have been different.
It's rather appropriate that the last post was in 2008. Life got a bit topsy turvy after that point. I walked away from an unhealthy relationship and intended to be single. Decided that I might give free love a try. Turns out the first person I tried that with was worse than the rest. I was convinced that I was inept and worthless and manipulative. While I have engaged in manipulation it was never with vile intention. Unfortunately, to quote the late Leonard Cohen, "all I've ever learned from love is how to shoot somebody who outdrew you". As a result of my inability to commit to my self-worth, and rightly so, the person I respected the most exited my life. Maybe one day I won't have rose-coloured glasses for him but I doubt it. Despite the hell I put him through, he treated me like a person and in my darkest moments it was always the lifeline that kept me going. I got married a couple years later after I had been convinced that there were no other options; that a "good woman" doesn't live in common-law. It was a bullshit lie. A year later I was divorced and finally started to do things for myself.
In a move very much like me, I met my next partner within weeks of leaving my ex but this time I allowed myself the distance. There was no harm in being friends, having feelings, and just letting everything coexist within me. Maybe my brain chemicals caught up to me or maybe it was what people meant by hitting rock bottom. But habits are difficult to break and in a moment of self-sabotage, perhaps a few, I almost listened to people who have only had my best interests at heart if it served them.
Long story short, I've now been married over five years, been going to therapy and actively tackling my CPTSD. I'm certain I still have bad traits but I'm figuring out which ones serve me, help me become who I want to be, and which ones are just toxic. I have a home and a dog and a career and peace. I can sleep at night mostly without nightmares and have a partner to talk out the bad days with. Sometimes the thought comes that maybe I should reach out to the people in my past, the people who knew the broken me, and get to know them again but honestly, what good would that do? At worst they remember me as a victim maybe even a villain and at best they don't think of me at all. I check my ego regularly and remind it that while I see the world from my perspective, it's not all about me. In fact, my view is the only thing that is all about me. It may cowardice, but a part of me feels that it would only be for my ego, to remind them I exist, if I were to reach out. They're living their lives, making something of themselves, and that doesn't require me at all.
Perhaps in the next 20 years kismet will allow me to reintroduce myself to people I've lost touch with, to show them who I wanted to be all this time. A cup of tea and conversation about how we've all changed, hopefully for the better. That we've grown up as we've grown older.
Until then, I'll send hugs, kisses, and well-wishes into the ether and look forward to that day.