The squatter leaves this weekend. Finally. And all the squatter’s disgusting stuff will be gone too.
I wish it had happened much sooner.
I’ve tried to be patient. I’ve tried to ignore the numbness inside me that prevents me from feeling the pain of remembering what life used to be. I’ve tried to be understanding about the squatter’s issues and remain kind, even when my body is reminding me of the trauma I used to face daily. But the numbness itself reminds me of how I used to live. How I used to ignore what was swirling around me, dragging me down and making me wish I was dead. I was dead inside. That’s what the numbness was. A great big pile of nothing.
But it wasn’t nothing. It was everything that has hurt me.
My babysitter’s family surviving through domestic violence while I was forced to witness it as a toddler and older. My parents’ disdain for who I was once they couldn’t control my every move. The constant pressure of not feeling good enough or meeting their expectations. The way they dismissed real medical problems, like the stomach pain tied to the extreme anxiety I was feeling all the time. The rejection I felt from some members of my extended family. My father constantly waging a war on my self-esteem, with the idea that I needed to be humbled regularly, even though I was cutting as a teenager because I felt so worthless and unworthy of love. And then there was the BIG problem, the thing I had to hide forever because it was so despicable that no one would want me if they knew. The mismatch between what my body said I was and who I really was in my own mind. The mismatch itself presented me with a lifetime full of shame, but also the reaction to the ambiguousness I was about to get away with for most of my young life. It disgusted my father in particular.
There’s more too, but all of that wrapped around itself inside of me and festered like a dead body rotting me away from the inside.
And the squatter only added to that pain and festering. “You’re crazy, you’re abusive, you’re not good enough, you’re boring, you are terrible, you are unlovable, and most of all, I am better than you. Everything about you makes you a bad person.”
Against all odds, I broke free. I moved away. I recovered three of the four children. I coached the oldest from a distance as well as I could. I let things go when I was forced to deal with the squatter. I helped the squatter with a free house. I helped the squatter with money more than once. I let the squatter off the hook multiple times.
Among the memories my body has of the pain, is a light. A strong light that no one has been able to extinguish. Even the squatter couldn’t stop the light from shining.
And every day it gets brighter. That light will not go out. Even I can’t put it out.
The light energizes me. The light reveals what used to exist in darkness. The light keeps me from giving up. The light helps me to stand up and tell the world that I will not be broken. I will be the person I have always been and will always be. I will support my children. I will nurture their growth as individuals and let them show me who they want to be. I will set a good example and not show them what to avoid in their adult lives.
I have not backed away from any boundary I’ve set with the squatter since April. I have held that line every single time, no matter how exhausting it has been. I will not let the squatter hurt me any longer. I will not give up and put myself last, like the squatter wants.
I win again, squatter. I always win because good beats evil, preparation in life beats just letting life smack you in the face, eyes wide open beats your constant avoidance of important things. You’ve learned nothing about being an adult. You have so much working against you that is all self-imposed. Maybe you will be happy when you get out of your own way. That’s what I have done. I went to therapy. I dealt with my pain. I worked until I was exhausted because I knew the only person who could get the festering death out of me was me.
It’s the end, squatter.
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