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To the step-father who left me withered, feeling useless, stupid, a waste… for all the times you looked at me with such disgust, your face contorted and twisted with hate, making me feel so ugly…all those times you pulled my hair, pushed me down, humiliated me in front of others, slapped me in the face, beat me with your belt and then later apologized, saying “That hurt me worse than it did you”….Yeah? Fuck you.

Daddy who left when I was four and only materialized by way of an annual birthday card with a wilted five dollar bill folded inside the scotch taped envelope… too busy with your second, third, fourth marriage to hear my cries and pleas. You loved me and there was nothing in your power you could do? Fuck that.

To the man who I had a brief affair with after walking away from a ten year marriage, fuck you for laying in your bed spent from fucking me and while I stared at your REM posters in the bedroom of your mother’s house, you told me that this was the best I could ever hope for. That although I was beautiful, smart and funny, the fact that I was also a single mother meant that men would never take me seriously. With a three year old daughter in tow, too much baggage you explained. Fuck you.

Love of my life… oh, the nights I spent watching the rise and fall of your chest, counting each one of your eyelashes as you slept next to me, surprised at my tears as I realized how deeply in love I was with you. Climbing that mountain and making love in the rain….wasting entire days treasure hunting in used book stores, filling our house with the wildflowers we collected while walking and talking for hours on end, side by side, by candlelight, reading our poetry aloud to one another, you, just there….me, just being. You are afraid you don’t love me the way I love you? These past ten years I have spent aching for you? For that? Fuck you.

For my being five months pregnant with our child while reading your online profile in which you wrote, “Ask me why I feel comfortable exploring a sexual relationship outside my marriage”…fuck you, ex-husband. For the second, third and yes, fourth chance I gave you as you continued to screw whoever/whatever you could find on the internet, your co-workers, and prostitutes. Fuck you for blaming your grueling career, suggesting that perhaps I wasn't "meeting your needs", and that all men go through phases like this...cheating happens all the time and there are just plenty of men who don't get caught. Fuck you for my hurt, my anger, my shame, my frustration endured for far too many years and for making sex a twisted, ugly, sadomasochistic thing for me.

For the man who reached out to me with such tenderness, offered me truth and beauty by way of a wonderful friendship…only to have that dismissed when I communicated my unwillingness to embark on a physical relationship with you as you are M-A-R-R-I-E-D, a hearty fuck you too.

Dear X,

I wish I could say it was my fear that was holding me back but
instead I see it as my courage. The only woman who will find
herself in your arms is the one who succumbs to her fear. Her fear
that she is not deserving of what she yearns for, that truth and
beauty are lies, that love is fleeting and tiny moments of
happiness are rare and exist to be greedily snatched and gulped. I
am not ready to surrender to that. To be that woman...

You responded by telling me that I don't understand you and that you are not at all interested in pursuing a relationship with someone so "unkind."

X, I don’t understand you? Au contraire. I will not allow you to make me feel as though I am less in response to your misery, confusion and emptiness.

And lastly, to the man I shared a whirlwind, fairy-tale romance who met me with anger and hostility when I bared my soul with painful honesty expressing my fears, my insecurities and requests for time, for patience, and for understanding. Instead of compassion and kindness, you chose to attack my character, my integrity, and treated me as a heartless, malicious bitch who was hell bent on stomping your heart into the ground. You claimed to love me and yet you were not capable of such as you were too consumed by your own pain and frustration. Well, yes, fuck you but at the same time, I forgive you. You have offered me something that no man has ever given me, a humble and heartfelt apology, one that is free of rationalization, condition, or expectation.

For that?
I say thank you and I love you. I love you with all my heart.