How Can I Miss You If You Won’t Go Away?

A few days ago, Prime flashed his iPod at me; on it was an email that he had just received. When I saw it, my heart twisted and my stomach dropped to the floor.

It was from S______. Apparently, she had some pictures that needed a good home and she had been trying to get up with me in regards to this. Not to worry, she wouldn’t send me anything with the ex!

How classy. But I’m not interested.

It’s not that I don’t want the pictures–I wouldn’t mind having them–but it’s the same pattern I’ve seen before. She’ll act incredibly nice at first in order to draw me in, then she’ll slowly become more and more critical until she decides to outright attack me. Once I’m good and pissed and decide, “Screw this, I’m done with her” she’ll hit the reset button and start the process all over again.

Lather, rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat.

Even this is part of that pattern. Just when everything in my life seems to be going smoothly, she’ll pop up and want attention. Or worse, she’ll pop up and try to feed me information on what my ex may be doing and how it’s so, so terrible. (That isn’t a joke, either; in 2015, she had to tell me that my ex got diagnosed with Asperger’s in 2005 and he was living at home with his mother. This was a day after I discovered that a friend of mine had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.)

Although getting the pictures would be great, it’s also an opportunity for her to reestablish contact, which I don’t want. I’ve been trying to stop having contact with her for years; back in the early 2000s I tried to minimize contact. The reason why? She tried to gaslight me when it came to my ex, along with trying to drag me into a bunch of high school level drama, which I had no intention of getting involved with at all. I quit emailing her for several years and enjoyed the quiet; she popped back up in my life about five years later. That was when I learned the truth about my family situation. Having her in my life didn’t help at all; if anything, she seemed to be ready to minimize my emotions over the situation.

I get it: this wasn’t the greatest situation on the planet. Maybe she would have handled the news that she had a half-brother that she didn’t know existed better than I did. However, I had to mourn for what I didn’t have, would never have and what I lost, such as the trust I had placed in my parents.

Mourning isn’t easy. It has its peaks and valleys. There are days when you feel the burn of anger, the sting of sadness. It’s not easy. But it’s made far more difficult when someone tries to minimize all of that. And yes, I needed a break.

I also needed a break from the judgmental attitude. So I took one. However, S______ couldn’t take the hint. Which leads us to the here and now.

I’m not answering her email. I’ve let my hubby know that he doesn’t have to answer it, either. I don’t need the pictures and I really don’t want them; I have enough photos of those days gone by, thank you very much. Those days were rife with drama and I’ve had more than enough of that. I left high school and its petty jealousies behind but S______ seemingly hasn’t. I’ve grown up, changed but she seems content to stay at that one station in life.

That’s why I really don’t need those pictures. I have all I need from those days; anymore would just be overdoing it.