I screamed today.
Like top of my lungs screamed. I cried, and I screamed. And in that moment I could have punched through a glass window with the amount of adrenaline coursing through my body. I was so angry.
And what Meighan would ask me is what is that anger masking? Because anger is never the emotion. Anger is the protective shield that makes sure the real feeling doesn’t shine through.
The real feeling was sadness.
It’s always sadness with me.
But this time it was the sadness that was wondering why can’t you just love me.
You’ve said it over and over again that I’m different now. That I’m meaner and grumpier and more easily agitated. You say my writing is dark and my personality isn’t as optimistic. And I don’t deny it one bit. I am not the cheerful sunshine I once was all those years ago.
The universe has thrown me for a loop.
I have been wrung out. I have been trampled on. I have been ripped apart and tossed in the trash. The people I have loved have abandoned me. The job I had dreamed of has defeated me. And the place I called paradise has proven to be- at times- an absolute nightmare. My life has been a mess, and more often than not, I feel like I’m drowning in it.
My heart. What once was overflowing with so much love and hope and confidence is now calloused to the world around it. It has been hurt over and over and over again. By the people who were trusted to take care of it. By the people who were supposed to hold it tight. And so now I hold it tight. Now I make sure that no one will hurt it again. And to do that, I have to protect it at all costs.
Even if that means fighting with my sister.
The one person who was never supposed to drop my heart. She didn’t just drop it. She picked it up, smashed it into the wall, and walked away. And I got hurt. So I did what I do when I get hurt. I write about it. Because I feel just as much as I blink, and my emotions come out in paragraphs not just waves. That is what I do. That has been God’s gift to me to be able to feel it and write it and then release it.
Because plot twist people reading this website, after I write it I don’t feel it anymore. I could be so heartbroken. So upset. So defeated. But once I get it all on paper, it’s gone. Poof. That’s how I process it. That’s how I reconcile the conflict between my head and my heart.
But now my writing is being used against me. Now I am being told I am a terrible person for writing down how I’m feeling. I’m being told I’m wrong for putting my pain into sentences. That maybe I must not have faith in God if I’m saying these things. That maybe I’m not going to church enough or reading my Bible enough or praying enough. As if being Christian enough is a measure of how more or less suffering you will experience in this earth. So I must not being doing it correctly for me to be acting this way. Acting in a way that allows myself to feel and process and accept the hurt I’m experiencing.
That’s why I screamed.
And I could scream again right now.
I didn’t want to be told I was wrong. I didn’t want you to invalidate my experiences and make it feel like my pain wasn’t an accurate response to the situation I was in. I wanted to be seen, soothed, and safe.
As your daughter I wanted you tell me that it’s going to be ok.
That this colossal shift in my relationship with my favorite person on this planet is not going to change the fact that she’s still my sister. That this brief pause in our communication is not going to stop us from one day talking again and being part of each other’s lives. That no matter what Cassie says or does or acts like, that deep down she will always love and appreciate me.
And I will always love her. I will always want what is the absolute best for her. I will fight anyone who gets in her way or hurts her. Including you mom and dad.
Because all we both need right now is for you to love us. Just love us.