Give me my bag of skittles!

Sometimes a single skittle is awarded for for accomplishing a small task.

Last night I earned a bag of skittles.

I knew from my dreams last night would be coming and in a big way that knowledge helped prepared me. I went through, in my dreams, the scenarios where I was stabbed. Bleeding out on the floor, my final words were inspirational and poetic. The situations where I resorted to violence were met with acceptance and understanding of the consequences of my actions. I would be hauled away by the police, but met with compassionate looks by the officers who booked me. Earlier this week there was an elaborate fight sequence choreographed to a song from a mix tape my friend gave me which happened to be playing in the cd player in my car.

All of these random scenarios of chaos and violence and hurt prepared me for this night.
(Mainly, it was the months of therapy to properly deal with my abuse and the resulting trauma which prepared me for tonight. However, there was a significant amount of foreshadowing within my perseveration and nightmares.)

My abuser for the past several months stood mere feet away as I talked about my hopes and dreams with friends. My friends and I chatted about my dreams for the future over a drink, something I didn't have months ago. (A view of the future is something people don't always have when they are bullied down into submission. For months I was in a place where I didn't want to think about what was going to happen once I got home, let alone in several months.) Things were doing exceptionally well for the circumstance, but I knew what was coming.

My fear was not so much contact from my abuser, as contact from One of the other parties. The One who watched me being abused. The One who researched Autism and held me as I cried on my couch as I wondered, "why won't she understand me. What am I doing wrong?!" The One I felt a sisterly bond for the first time since College and The One I had supported when she felt the world was against her.

The One who's last words to me all those months ago were, "You could have handled (her {The Abuser's} treatment of you) better."

The only contact I have had with The One in months (Since September really) was tonight. At the end of the night, after Waltzing around the room the evening, she came up to me. She was the one I was afraid of talking to for fear she would not understand the trauma I endured from her. Maybe, despite all her research and knowledge and degrees, she did not understand her neutrality will be remembered in the annals of my memory with the people who directly hurt me. For all the complicated issues, maybe she can not understand what she did.

Maybe that is why she chose the end of the night to hurriedly come up to me  to say anything to me.


In the many scenarios in my head I could have;

• Resorted to violence.
• Wept.
• Run away. 
• Screamed.
• Cried. (A common theme)
• Cursed her out using foul language.
• Cursed her out using an ancient curse.
• Teared up. (See a pattern?)
• Screamed.
• Asked her simply "Why?"
• Asked her if she felt bad about her role in the chaos of my life.
• Begin talking in French and walk away.
• Run away. (Another popular motif)
• Not say anything/ignore her.
  
• Left and went into the bathroom and engaged in self-injurious behavior. (Far down on the list but considering how damaged, wrong, insignificant I was made to feel for months this was #1 most likely to occur.)
• Hugh Jackman carries me away and I forget the life I lived as if it were a bad dream.

None of these things happened, however much I wish the last one to have happened.

Instead, I looked her in the eyes and simply said, "Goodbye."

She was leaving for the night as the club was closing and I don't know if she fully registered the significance of what I said. If she happens to be reading this, it means closure. It means Goodbye in the sincerest form. It hurts to let go of a 10+ year friendship, but not as much as I expected it to. No longer will I look out in a crowd while performing searching for your face, wondering if you decided to catch the show tonight even though you RSVPed no on Facebook. I won't be afraid to attend events I want to go to because they matter to me, even though I know you will be there.

The opposite of love is not hate; it is apathy.
No tears were shed as I realized the pain I experience in 2014 is finally over. I have ended the relationships that needed to end and I have closure.
I can finally bury my dead bodies.


I earned all the *$&%ing Skittles last night.