My rebuild;

You watched me rebuild after you tore me down.

You watched me learn to walk again.

You watched me learn to climb.

You watched me buy my house.

You watched me fight to get my son back.

And somehow, along the way, you convinced me that those victories belonged partly to you.

They didn’t.

They were mine the entire time.

You had a front-row seat to my rebuilding, and instead of protecting what I was becoming, you tried to sabotage it.

You used your position in my life to take from the very thing I was trying so desperately to build.

And still, I built.

I kept building.

That matters to me now.

Because just because you died does not mean you are forgiven.

You’re not.

I don’t forgive you.

I don’t forgive the things you did.

I don’t forgive the things you took.

I don’t forgive the ways you made me question myself.

And I don’t have to.

I’m locking the escape hatch you left unlocked, that I left unlocked at your behest.

Just another way your nefarious behavior tried and failed to kill me.

For so long, I kept searching for myself in your mirrors.

Was I good enough?

Pretty enough?

Strong enough?

Worth loving enough?

I kept looking at my reflection through your eyes and waiting for it to finally be enough.

It never was.

But that was never because there was something wrong with me.

I was always good enough.

The mirrors I kept handing to you?

I have them back now.

And for the first time, I get to decide what I see.

So here is something I never thought I would get to say:

I am breaking up with you.

Not because you died.

Because I finally remembered that I belong to me.

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