The Bloody Doors Off

I spent 3 minutes writing and editing the title.

Because that’s what I do.

Edit myself.

I’m so damned careful around words. I know how they can injure; I’ve been on the receiving end. And yet I can’t speak the words, because I was never directly verbally abused.

That’s a lie.

And there I am. Again.

Editing.

Let me qualify. Bullied.

Why am I so scared of that word? That I have to pull it apart and twist it inside out to find another way, a less frightening way, to say it?

The moment he entered our lives, I was. I wasn’t happy about it. It meant that my mom and my dad weren’t getting back together. (Which as an adolescent, I didn’t fully understand why my parents were divorced. It turns out, for a Very Good Reason.) He was was dating my mom, he was moving in with us, they were getting married. I tried to accept it but there was something I just couldn’t get past.

And it was mutual.

He showed open disdain, would often belittle things I said or did (when he first moved in, I left out a tape recorder with all my favourite television theme songs; the next day, he’d taped over it, saying “whoever listens to this is fuckin’ retarded”.)

When I was. 17? 18? It was after they’d sold the house (which naturally I was against) and my brother, mom and step-father, and myself were living in a 2+ condo in north Scarborough. I was still in high school.

He hit me.

One time.

My mom, god bless her, stepped in and said he’d never do that again. If she had to choose between her son and him, she picked me.

So yeah. That was the low point.

My 20s were rocky. I edited myself out of family events. In my early 30s, at a party I did attend, he pulled me aside and told me I needed to do better. For my mom.

He was right. I wasn’t just punishing him. I was punishing her. And that broke my heart.

So I started trying to do better.

And, over time, things got better between him and me. So much so that, now, a few years after her death, we can end a phone conversation with “love you”.

I’m two seconds away from deleting this post.

Or at least editing it.