A Letter to My Grandmother

My computer died (I'm sure I'll rant about this at a later time) and I've been unable to write and the words have been storing themselves in my fingers and dying to get out and I have the feeling my posts are going to be unacceptably long in the coming weeks.
But before I start pouring out this backlog of useless things I want to write about, I must get this out of my system.

Dear Grandma,

I love you. Somehow, I still do. Just remember that.

But I don't like you very much. I've given you so many chances. I defended you time and time again. I tried to justify your actions and explain away what I refused to believe was blatant manipulation. I can't do that anymore.

Do you know how many tears I've cried because of you? Do you know how much guilt I felt, feelings purposely orchestrated by you? Do you know what you did to me? All to feed your selfish desires, make yourself feel important. You knew I'm the weakest member of my family. You fed upon my need to please those I love. You knew you could manipulate my feelings and you milked it for almost my entire life. A tool to get back at my father, to make my mother feel guilty.

I used to feel bad when my brother treated you badly. How wrong I was. He was acting like I should've all those years. He was just impervious to your constant guilt trips. He was, is, stronger than I am. What I thought was rudeness was simply him being a far better judge of character than I.

Perhaps I would've tolerated your behavior longer if it wasn't for the truth I saw in the way you treat my father. You know how close him and I are and you've always been jealous of it. You try to make him appear a bad influence. You blame him for the way my family functions. Just because we're not you doesn't mean we're not just as good. Maybe even better.

My father is a good man. He's given me everything I've ever needed and even everything I wanted. But most of all, he's given me the one thing you never have and never will be able to give--unconditional love.

He sees me for what I am. He knows my faults and loves me anyway. I don't have to hide my imperfections from him because he will try to understand. You only criticize, blame, and try to force me out of me.

I can be honest with him about my myself and my beliefs and he does not judge. Maybe he doesn't always agree, but he values my opinion and doesn't belittle it.

You just blame him, television, the internet, my "secular" education. You say I'm brainwashed and you don't even know half of the real me. You give me no credit. The father you say is horrible, he raised me to be an independent thinker, a logical and grounded person. I read. I think. I process. I form my own opinions. They are not his or anyone else's. I have my own brain. I strive to shake anybody's total influence. Yours, Dad's, anyone's.

You don't want to know me. You don't want to love me. You want to buy my affections and my loyalty just to get back at Dad for marrying my mother. You treat me like a tool under the mask of love and expect me to just accept this. You think everyone is trying to brainwash me but you're the only one full of manipulation.

I'm not that little girl in the poofy ugly dress you bought that I only wore to make you happy, or the little girl in the church choir even though I can't sing that only stays in it to make you happy, or the little girl reading her Bible out loud to strangers even though I'm so uncomfortable to make you happy, or the young woman getting baptised even though she was lying through her teeth just to make you happy. Back then, I thought I did those things out of love for my grandmother. I was simply being guilted and manipulated and used.

I will not be anymore. I will not sit back and watch you trash my father. You even went as far as to accuse him of child abuse. That is the most ridiculous accusation you could ever make. I will not sit back and watch you make my mother feel guilty for living the life she chose. Now that I'm older and able to see what you really are, I have to constantly hide what I really am to you. This isn't fair.

I'm supposed to love and like my grandmother. She's supposed to make me cookies and tell me stories about the good ole days and love me. She isn't supposed to make passive aggressive jabs at my father, lie about him to the rest of the family, and use me as a bargaining chip.

I will smile and be polite at all the obligatory visits. I'll exchange a hug and maybe even a laugh, but I will not bow down to you anymore. I will not let you guilt me into anything, including loving my own father. I am my own person, whether or not you choose to believe it.

Ayn Rand wrote in The Fountainhead, "I would die for you, but I will not live for you." You've lost my respect and I know you'll never care to earn it back.

Just remember, this your own doing. I tried.

Sincerely,
Your granddaughter

Hibernating

I have been struggling with people lately. It seems every time I try to talk to one, it goes wrong. I don't think I'm doing anything differently than usual to warrant lesser results, but perhaps I am.

Or maybe it's just the time of year. Exam time, for the students among us, always produces plenty of stress. Everybody is bent over syllabuses and calculators, trying to figure out what has to be scored on the remaining assignments to capture that coveted A, or maybe just to pass. The pressure of having to study leaves everyone feeling guilty for having a non-school related conversation, daring to think about something else when there's so much schoolwork to be done. Everybody is on edge.

There's also the weather, becoming cold and windy and rainy and sucking all the life force from the poor little humans wrapped in layers, shivering their way from place to place. The wind comes and snatches all the green from the leaves and knocks them to the ground, along with the spirits of those raking the leaves despondently. It's hard to be happy when surrounded by a dead, cold outdoors. It gets dark so early.

Or maybe it's just that my own stock of patience has been depleted. I haven't been sleeping or eating particularly well lately, giving me a chronic feeling of bad health. My head always hurts and it takes conscious effort to stay awake. This doesn't leave much room for dealing with the sensitivity of my fellow beings, and catering to their minute sensibilities. It takes energy that I do not have to deal with people.

So I avoid contact until this time has passed. Now I know why bears hibernate. It's easier to spend these months curled up in your cave, warm and sleeping, than out there trying to communicate with a frustrating world. I stay inside, with my heating and books, where I can remain blissfully alone.