https://wordsofwomennewsletter.ghost.io/what-happened-last-week-part-one-2/
It’s hard to write when your hands are shaking.
I promised you all, however, to tell the full story. And, unlike some people, I stay true to my word. Even though, as I write this, it feels like rubbing salt into the wound. I am writing through pain, through tears, through rage, through hope that I’ll make sense of this and maybe, hopefully, turn it into something constructive.
Where to start though? When I first sat down, alone in my house on Friday night, doors locked, garage code changed, everything still for the first time in days, I began with my birth.
I saw it all so clearly. This moment, this horrible place I now find myself in, was inevitable from the day my poor little vagina popped into the world. I was doomed from the start. But we don’t have time to go that far back.
I must find a closer moment. Not the birth of my first child or second or the layoff of my job or the panic attacks in my closet. All of that still feels too far. When I close my eyes and tell the story to a friend, I guess I know where it starts.
The major events in my life, in all of our lives, usually occur over the span of minutes. A singular moment (a word, a look, a thought) that ripples into something much bigger, until it finally explodes, and everything is forever changed.
This time, the ripple was started by my idiot brother.
Before, I would have never said that, because he might get offended. And I’ve spent the better part of my career, this newsletter, trying to be delicate. To speak my truth without exposing anyone in the process. Well, now I don’t have to worry about that. He lost that privilege when something he thought he saw – something that wasn’t offensive and most definitely wasn’t about him – has given me the space and freedom to do and say EXACTLY HOW I FEEL from here on out. He will now come to understand exactly how considerate and nice and non-offensive I’ve been all these years.
I believe that’s what he was trying to do at 2:38 a.m. on Tuesday morning. I’d seen this before. These late-night rabbit holes of rage and mania. His written manifestos and stream of consciousness tirades on Trump and The Washington Post, sent to the family in a barrage of texts throughout the night. There have been many mornings we’d wake up, look at our phones, and roll our eyes. And to be honest, I never really cared. Until I woke up at 6 a.m. on Tuesday morning and realized his middle-of-the-night mania was focused on me this time.
Read the rest of What happened last week? (Part One) by subscribing to the Words of Women Newsletter.
