An Open Letter to To the Man who wasn’t a Man…

To the man who wasn’t a man. Wasn’t even a human,

I want to say thank you.

Not thank you like most people mean thank you- thank you more like f*** you.

It’s because of you I trust no one with my girls. I can’t enjoy a date night out, I can’t have a girls’ night until Dave gets home from work, I get nauseous every time I leave Addie at school. Thank you.

As if I’m not genetically inclined to already be a bit strange and overprotective, you also gave me the fear of losing control of my own body and mind, and because of that and because I’m the mother of daughters, I fear motherhood.

There’s not much I could do. I wish I could say therapy would help, but I don’t think that’s really true.

But… I think there’s something you could do.

I think you could have learned to keep your hands to yourself. Click To Tweet

I think you could have learned that I was a child and you an adult.
I think you could have respected boundaries, mores, civility, humanity, life.

No.

You could have done any of that, but you didn’t and instead you passed this fear onto me.
This fear that someone will strip my daughters of their right to control their bodies, their right to say no, their voice, their power.

Their innocence.

You instilled fear and hurt and shame and worry and I thank you for giving me, and showing me, caution. But I could have learned it so many other ways.

So as I search for a babysitter to share my story, do my job, enjoy a date night, I say I hate you because what you did crippled me.

Silently.
Invisibly.
Without recourse for you…
in a lifetime of redundant pain fear and ache for me.