An Apology of Sorts- old wrongs I’ve done that I can’t seem to let go of...

Yesterday, I met a ghost. One that I meet less and less now and yet every time I see her face my body goes still and I cannot fake smiles. I cannot look at what she was and find anything good.

Yesterday, I cried so hard I wailed. I wailed because someone was there that knew her, knew her more than anyone else present. And this person saw all of the mess made- she was her witness.

And I cannot try to pretend that this ghost wasn’t me, because I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel like I owed this person a debt. I put her into a dangerous and uncomfortable situation. And I cannot forgive myself, and I don’t expect her to either. We left the place where I met the witness of my slow and steady demise that happened some years ago now, and I felt myself go numb.

My hands began to shake and I groaned out all the excess shame and remorse hiding in places only I could feel. And all they could do was watch. They could only hold my hand and tell me, “You’re here. You’re safe. He’s not here. He cannot hurt you anymore.”

And while I was afraid of his shadow still appearing in my vision, what I feared even more than him in that moment, was the shadow of my former self, hell bent on destruction and not even aware of the collateral damage she inflicted on others, her witness just one of many.

There are moments when I wish the world would swallow me whole, that moment when the witness of my past life met me to tell me of my failings, was one of them. I remember not wanting to breathe anymore.

I became the butt of every joke there ever was and I supplied the jokes. And I think, for me, the hardest part of moving forward is being confronted with all the shit I did “wrong” while trying to cope with the terrible wrong(s) he did to me, and the countless others after him.

And what makes me angry is that I know if it was even possible to hold my wrongs and his in either hand, I know which one would be heavier: my own.

And that’s the saddest part of all of this, isn’t it?