Day 16 of Penny

I have been dreading and anticipating this for 16 Days; and even though this is a little early I have the strength right now and I think I can do this without going berserk. A letter to someone who hurt me recently. I haven't allowed anyone to hurt me in a very, very long time. I might get upset, and angry, but it passes quickly with no real personal damage. I warn you this is going to get very ugly and very personal. I feel like I need to do it to get over it, and I think it might help several of my readers too. You don't have to read it if you don't want to, I'm not going to be censoring anything.

Dear Grandma Pat,

I don't know if I should thank you or kill you with words. I can, you know, kill someone with words. You taught me how. My earliest memory of you is you telling me you would throw me out the window of the truck because I was crying. I know I was to young to understand what was going on, I don't know why I was crying before you started to say this, but I know why I was crying afterwards. You bitch! I could not have been more than 3 or 4. Who says that shit to a little kid? You were mean enough that I believed you, I remember that.

I should also point out that there were not many permanent things in my life. Because my mom cared enough about me to send me to church, I was being taught that family was the most important thing a person can have. For the most part, my family is amazing, I have a huge network of people who are very dear to my heart. So, because I cared about you because you were my family, I allowed myself to care what you thought. You used to pit me against my cousins and other family members. So and so is really good at this, they are amazing (I refuse to use their names, because you were manipulating them too), but you never had any praise for me. I did really well in school because I liked it. We're talking straight A's here. You never noticed. I was weak and stupid and you never missed a chance to let me know this.

I got in my first "girl fight" around 3rd or 4th grade, I don't really remember much about it, but I remember the girl ended up changing schools, and that I didn't get caught. Things snow balled after that. I got meaner and meaner, and I could manipulate other students, teachers, and kids in my neighborhood pretty well. They put me in the Gifted Class at school because I don't think they really knew what to do with me otherwise. By the time I moved to Wyoming, I had a pretty nasty-sweet little routine. You dropped of the face of the planet doing God-Knows-What, and I entered a period of my life where I was running the show and things didn't seem too bad. You occasionally got your digs in, and had succeeded in alienating me from all of my Pritchard family. You taught me not to care about people or what they thought about me.

Then came Grandpa's Cancer. This taught me what hell is going to be like. It felt like you honestly enjoyed this. You got to lord information over all of us, and used it like sparks in an already too dry forest. My dad and his brother and sister where obviously very distraught and emotionally spent. You worked this as often as you could to start battles over who cared the most, and who should inherit what, and to drive Aunt Sis even further away and into addiction. The whole time Grandpa was on oxygen because he was dying of lung cancer, you smoked. Hell, I think you smoked more because you though it might kill him more quickly, or more painfully, or who freaking knows what goes on in your head. When it was finally over, I thought maybe the hold you had on us finally broke. That maybe my dad would just walk away from the perpetual train wreck of his family and we could move on. We did for a while.

I'll never forget the day I learned you would be moving to Fort Bridger. I was stupid and young enough to think that I could have a relationship with you. I was going to church and trying to be a better person. I knew I needed to stop bullying and manipulating people around me. I had learned that general nastiness and a mean right hook were not solving any of my problems. It only took you a couple weeks to prove me wrong. You somehow insinuated yourself into my social scene. You were manipulating people I knew--let's not kid ourselves, you were buying beer and Lord knows what else for my buddies. I didn't realize how out of hand this got until one of my friends let me know that you were trying to bribe him to go out with me. I laughed it off, and split the cash with him.

I had a pretty nasty little spiral and things got all jagged and rough edged for a while. You lost control though, shortly after this you had your first heart attack. It was a little too late in coming for me. I let you screw with my mind again, and I had cut off ties with all my normal nice friends, broke up with the incredibly nice guy I was dating by screaming at him that he "Was the most boring pain in the ass I'd ever met!" in the hallway just before 3 hour. I'll never forget how sad he looked just before 4th hour when he asked me if we were still going out and I laughed in his face and said "What do you think dumbass?" I then went on an attention getting spree that really climaxed my Senior Year of high school. I treated people terribly, I used and hurt some of my very best friends, learned to abuse alcohol and others, and I finally figured out how to get to you. I cut you and The Family out of my life. My relationship with my dad is strained and awkward to this day.

After bottoming out one night, I sort of cleaned up a little when I moved away from home. I got married, to a nice guy, by accident (I won't get into the details or reasoning of this, but I think it may be the only thing that saves me). I ignored you, and was able to cut you almost completely out of my life until you had the courtesy of getting cancer yourself. I knew you were going to die. I was even a little bit giddy thinking about it. For as long as I could remember I would look in the mirror at my face searching for anything that might resemble you; hoping to God I wouldn't find anything, and loathing anything I thought did. Finally you were going to be gone, and I was going to be free.

I got my brother out of school, and drove down to Sanpete to see you one last time. I don't know what I thought I'd get from that. You were completely high, and drinking a beer in your underware when we showed up. Aunt Sis greeted us at the door (which was the most shocking thing that happened that day). She promptly disappeared, which is like a super power she has developed over the years. We chit chatted, you couldn't really remember who Seth was, and then you passed out and we left. Two weeks later you did go ahead and die.

I thought maybe then I'd get my shit together and put the past behind me. After all you taught me that love was a trap, and anyone who knew you cared about them could use that against you. It wasn't working, and I was loosing my grip on things. Then for reasons known only to God and Aunt Sis, she turned up at my folks house and declared she was ready to get clean. Damned if she didn't do it too.

I learned a lot about mental illness and addiction. I learned we have a long and sordid history of Bi-Polar Disorder, Addiction, and Manic Depression; at least on your side of the family. Alcoholism is strong on both sides. This was maybe the most freeing thing that ever happened to me. I learned that a lot of the shit you put us through over the years was not even really under you control. Sure, you might have been eccentric and mean in your own right, but a lot of it was the mental illness. You were so far gone, and for so long that you were too crazy to know right from wrong. I learned how to recognize what was going on with myself and how to control it a little.

I was at a crossroads in a lot of ways as this point. I realized that I had nothing and no one to get back at for all the angry wasted years. For one, you were dead. For another thing, I could not reconcile punishing someone who was not in control of themselves. Because of my beliefs about life after death, and what happens in the time in between that, I believe things have probably changed dramatically for you. I pray you are making the most of it, pretty often actually.

I've taken control of who I am because of this. I have tried to right a lot of the wrongs I have committed over the years. I quit blaming outside forces for the way I feel. I've gotten my faith back. Most of all, I've started caring about others and letting them into my life with no strings attached. Because of that I forgive you. Completely. I have forgiven all the others who were manipulated by you that have hurt me. I'm thankful that in a way you gave me a thick skin, and the ability to not be hurt (or shocked) by people and the things they do.

Formally, and forever I forgive you. You can't and won't hurt me or us anymore. After this purge, I hope I think about it even less. Someday I hope to forget. My kids will never know about any of the ugliness. I'm not passing it on. I will teach them what I know about what I call "Keeping Your Head Clean," and that getting treated for mental issues is not embarrassing in anyway.

With Love,

Penny