(no longer a nanny)Kate

old post, relevant now...

back in october, i wrote this post as a way to attempt, as i do, to rescue my brother. it's still as relevant now to his situation, as it is to several other people i know, but won't mention.... i wish he would read this and realize just what he's doing.

weird things to mention.

maybe...
when i was 18, i dated a guy who was... pushy. pushy about a lot of things. his opinions, his ideas, his desires.
'j' and i worked together at a camp that summer, it was really the only time we spent together. during that time, he flirted, a lot, with several other girls we worked with. what i knew was that i liked him, a lot, and for some reason wanted to be with him. he was kind of a free spirit, nomad-type, ...in some ways what i admire about my step sister h. she's very free, lives her life her way, doesn't conform. she's cool.
the major difference between them is that heather is cool in all ways, she isn't forceful about her life, her ideas, or is pushy about things she wants. he was.

he was really pushy, so much so that looking back, i'd say it was to a point of being verbally abusive. not about me as a person, per say, but about my ideals. my desires in life, my plans. including my virginity.

he was verbally abusive about my ideal to stay one until i married. how I made the choice for him, he had no say in the matter. he didn't like that... at all.
and i heard about it everyday, all summer long.

(i know my mom reads this and i don't know if the shock will kill her, i hope it doesn't) so i finally gave in. his eyes were roaming, and i knew it. and for some bizarre reason, i thought i had to keep him. and the way i thought i could keep him was to give in.

it wasn't.

(i hope if any of my kids read this they learn from my mistake).
'j' and i broke up after i went back to college. sophmore year he would call occaisionally (drunk) at 3 am. it wasn't fun.
that next summer, i went to the lake for a few days, and i think 'j' came up for a day. we were sitting on the porch watching the sunset. he told me i was a strong person, he knew that. (i didn't think i was, retrospection made me realize how much stronger i could have been). and he said he was sorry. for everything.
he'd pushed. and he knew it was wrong.
(in the meantime i had found out he was a busy guy with three of the girls we had worked with, one of whom had claimed to be a good friend of mine.... anger, then realization had ensued upon me, and i finally came to the conclusion that i had really messed up. and no one deserved the blame but me.... so i accepted his actions and my own and learned... but he didn't know i knew about the other three girls....)

i told him what i knew, that i had known, deep inside, all along.
he was really surprised, but apoligized for that too. he knew how much of a jerk he'd been and how much i'd been hurt.

my point in all this isn't to bore anyone with details that are now, 8 years later, almost irrelevant. they are part of me in that it shaped some later decisions, and made me more aware of myself, my desires in relationships, and my plans for how far i would let go of myself before walking away.

my point IS to say, that walking away is hard. it sucks. it hurts. it aches.
deep inside, you think you're going to die if you're away from the person who has made you into something you don't recognize.
walking away is not an easy thing to do. and sometimes, it breaks something in you.

but walking away is salvation sometimes.
sometimes you just need to hear it from the one person you didn't think it would come from.


steven, i love you.


i don't revel in the fact that i have revealed such a thing about myself online. i'm not thrilled with what my actions at 18 were. but they did make me, me. everything i've done in my life, good and bad, has made me kate. sometimes i really don't like the things i do, or have done. sometimes things happen that i can't control and simply have to respond to. like now. losing two jobs in one day wrecked me in many ways. my response was a letter, and to move on, ... to know i did nothing so horrid that i deserve what has happened. but it's made me into who i am at this moment. how you choose to live makes you. what happens to you, good and bad, shapes you, but your response to those things... that is the trueness of you.

steven, i love you.

where are you in this??