Uninvited Memories

Relationships are complicated. It's as simple as that. To intertwine your life with another can be exhilarating, terrifying, confusing, fulfilling or possibly soul destroying. It is especially difficult when you are young.

When you are young you are still trying to find you way your way in the world. You are still trying to determine who you are and how you will fit into this world. You think you know EVERYTHING but you don't know crap. Really...what you think you know...throw it away...because it will only confuse you even more when it all falls apart. If you are in your 20's for 30's right now trust me when I tell you that you will be a different person in 10 years. We change and we grow and we discover that we want different things. It's normal. It's natural. We are supposed to grow and explore our intricacies. 

I have made so much progress and right now...in this time...I am the happiest I have ever been in my life. I worked with a therapist for two years to rid me of the PTSD that haunted my every step and only recently did I have an epiphany about who I am that took years of resentment and seething anger and just melted it away. I am so much more even emotionally and so much calmer. It's been an adjustment. I keep wondering who this person is that has taken over my brain but I like her and we are keeping her.

All this being said there is this little irritant from my youth that keeps popping up from  time to time and I have been trying to figure out why. The memories are uninvited, unwanted and just generally annoying. Thanks to my work with my therapist these memories no longer send me "down the rabbit hole" but I don't like it so this blog in another step in purging this stuff from my brain.

When I was almost 21 I was manipulated into meeting someone whom I always refer to as "the Evil One". (We'll shorten it to E1 for this blog) Now...was she really evil you ask? I have honestly tried to see her as just another flawed human being but in reality she was a sociopath and her choices were "evil" in that she did not care who she hurt or who she had to manipulate to get what she wanted. She was ridiculously androgynous and I thought beautiful. She was everything...or so it seemed...that I was not. She was confident, bold, she knew what she wanted and I was infatuated with the idea that someone like her would want to be with me. Because I thought I was ugly and fat and shy and unlovable and weak and just less than everyone else. I let my self fall deeply in love with a total train wreak of a human being and the carnage was brilliantly epic. 

She took all my vulnerabilities and all my doubt and she used it to further whatever agenda she had going. Really...I should have known when she said she would visit me and then go on to Colorado to basically be another woman's mistress that she was trouble. How could I not see this as a red flag? Ah youth.... I think a part of me thought she was kidding. Who would want to live that way? I was so naïve. Maybe I thought I could rescue her of fix her? That was my modus operandi for most of my 20's and into my 30's. I think I was almost 40 when I realized I could not "save" everyone or "fix" everything that was wrong in other people's lives. 

I think we were only together for maybe 3 or 4 years but it was not fun. Toward the end I finally realized that she was sleeping with someone else and had been for awhile and had also most likely slept with all of my "friends" at the time or had at least tried to sleep with them. She decided she was leaving one early December and I asked her to stay until Christmas was over because my mother loved her and had no idea what kind of douche bag she really was and I did not want to hurt mom's feelings. My feelings, of course, did not matter because, after all, I didn't deserve to be happy now did I. By Christmas I had made progress into letting her go. I was going to be okay. And then Christmas came and went and she stayed. I was puzzled. I watched her break the woman's heart whom she was supposedly leaving me for and I mean that literally. She talked me into going with her when she told her she had never loved her. I should have ran screaming into the night but I stayed and kept trying to find a way to make her happy even though I later realized she was breaking her heart because she had already lined up her next mark. Evil.

I have not spoken to the E1 in almost 30 years. I have no idea where she is and don't care. I am sure she is still sleeping her way across the lower 48 manipulating people along the way to get what she wants. It's probably a little tougher for her now since she's in her early 50's but I am sure there is a whole new generation of women she can charm into giving her whatever it is she is searching for these days. So why does she pop up in my brain every now and then? It's usually triggered by a song or an emotional reaction to something else.

Maybe these memories are a reminder of how far I have come? Maybe I have to admit that deep down there is a tiny spot left, I think it's buried behind my pancreas, that still cares for the person I thought she was? When you realize that someone is a sociopath and you know you want nothing to do with them EVER but you find that you still care for them...it's unsettling and irritating and I think this might be why she still pops in every now and then. 

So...Dear Evil One:

I loved you with the passion that only youth can provide. It was reckless and foolish and soul destroying. Now all that's left is residual resentment and contempt and that tiny speck of love that I can't seem to purge from my soul. Your memories are unwelcome and unbidden. I will not ever be able to forgive you for the way you treated myself and others. I know that you do not care what I think or feel and that is fine because the feeling is mutual. Go on about your self-destructive ways and good riddance. A tiny part of me will always love the potentially decent human being that was buried in your heart and I will accept that fact now and put it away. I have said it out loud finally and now it can rest.