(Part three)
This is the final part of the three part series.
In the middle of the confusion, her mother returned from where she had gone. Her mother’s advice that this was the age to get married became a daily nuisance. She was so stressed at this time. Because she couldn’t handle it, she was sick and on bed rest for weeks. As the time progressed, in the middle of conversations, she would ask me “I should get married, right?” I don’t want her to be stressed because of me. She’s a person who has the full right to choose to do what she wants in life, and she knows what she wants. I want to love her, not stress her out. I can’t hold her hostage. I used to stress about what to say to her. In time, she got m…a…r…r…i…e…d.
She wants to know everything about me and looks for reasons to be near me. I didn’t want to go back to how we were. She has become a mother. I still don’t think she knows what she wants from me.
She told me that she was saddened to hear from our colleague, who was in the car with me on the way back home after the wedding, that I was so overwhelmed by my emotions that I had let out a few tears. I went to her wedding so that I wouldn’t disrupt her life. Every colleague that had spent all that time gossiping about us was eagerly looking for drama, so I swallowed my pain and smiled through the whole wedding. It is true that her happiness is my happiness, but the pain wasn’t something easy to bear. Because her new husband was our colleague and would hear about all the things that happened around us, the number of people who came to witness the drama without being invited wasn’t small. And all the people who couldn’t understand why I was happy would whisper right in front of me. I tried to stomach everything; pretending like nothing happened. But I couldn’t recover from it. I had no one I could talk to about this, so I thought I was about to go mad; I really wasn’t okay. I braced myself and made the conscious decision to stay away from her. Whenever we came across each other for work, she always wanted to talk to me. She comes up with excuses to meet with me. She still follows me with her eyes as I walk away. She wants to know everything about me and looks for reasons to be near me. I didn’t want to go back to how we were. She has become a mother. I still don’t think she knows what she wants from me. When she’s sick, she tells me that she misses me. But not once have we talked about how much we loved each other. Aren’t we pitiful?
I now understand and accept myself. I never beg for approval from anybody. I love myself but thinking about what I have experienced still makes me sick. I have never talked about it to anyone. From my family, I think my sister suspects, but we have never talked about it upfront. I know I don’t have anyone to support me, but I am me. Please show me your sisterhood because I honestly don’t have anybody next to me that understands me.
