Dearest Friends

To my. dearest friends,
You'll never read this because of where it's written. Yet, maybe I will find peace in having written it.  You know who you are.  You are women who have been in my life for years.  Who have weaknesses and hurts and yet stand strong.  I admire you so much.  I esteem you.  I want to be as strong as I see you being.
I have had so much to tell you lately.  I try to get the time.  And when we get the time, I have a hard time sticking to my guns.  I need to tell you that I really need gentleness. That I need people to reach out to me.  Most of the time I feel like a bother since I have always been the one that does the reaching out, the pulling together.  And....seeing as how I'm so needy now, it makes me feel awkward.
Do you know that I don't get calls to see how I am?  That I don't have other people in the world?  If not for your sweet ladies, I'd be alone in the world except for my kids.  Some of you are right here, some far away.  Yet the truth is that somehow I'm a person that is the connector.  I do the outreach.  Problem when I'm in pain and needing to be loved on.  I write.  I call.  I know that it's not enough.  I want to do more to be sure that you are each ok.
But sometimes....some days....I desperately wish for my phone to ring.  Not to do something for someone.  Just to be checked on.  Invited.
And, I've had words to tell you.  And I have tried.  REALLY tried.  But they just don't get through.  He was a real bad guy to me.  He hurt my body.  Sex was not a thing that felt loving.  It was manipulative.  And in the last years, it was demeaning.  It was all I could do to be in the same house.  I would tremble and shake.
I want you to know how hard I tried.  I want to know for certain that you are my friends.  I am tired of walking this tightrope.  I just want to talk.  But I don't feel like I've been given permission.  I feel like the words I'm hearing are that you can keep things as they were.  I get that.  But, I can't.  It traumatizes me every time.  It's a setback.  It's a crushing thing when he uses you against me.  He knows what he is doing.  He knows that I will walk away before I allow you to be hurt.  He knows that about me.  That's why he keeps pushing in.  Because he knows how to get to me.  The best way is by using people that I care about.  He does it with the kids.  He does it with you.  And I try to be respectful.  And yet....he is being really hurtful.  I need you to see.  I need you to hear me
I have new friends too.  But I NEED you.  I can't tell you how much.
But I don't want to pressure you.  If it's not offered, I don't feel like I have a right to ask for it.  I would do anything for you.  And I don't want to expect things that make you uncomfortable.  But, I know that this whole thing does.  I hate that.
I need so desperately to be heard.  I need a place to cry that's not alone and where I'm actually validated.  It just feels like you want me to find new friends.  That it would be easier.  And so, I struggle.  I hear those words and I wonder why I have no friends who say, "no matter what, I choose you."  And then I feel selfish to even think that.  I have lived so long being treated as if I don't deserve it.
My sweet friends.....just live as you need to.  Grow.  Thrive. But please realize that I am doing the absolute most that I can.  When I say that I can't see him or have him inserted into my life..well that also means that I need not to be asked to do more towards getting along with him or being around him..even for occasions.  It's so hard.  I guess that I'm supposed to be able to do it for the holidays or expect to spend them alone.  That sucks.  I think of Thanksgiving and how we spent it together and now I am thinking that since he's willing to do it altogether and I'm not then I am going to have to be alone.  Please, if that's the case, include my kids.  They will be devastated if not.
I cry often. I know that you don't see it. Or know.  I try not to put you in the middle.  But you are.  Whether I like it or not.  I need you.  I wish I could let you know that.  Instead, I just keep letting you talk about how I should be able to go to things with him there and go to make new friends and go to new churches.  I don't have it in me right now.  Right now, I crave the safe shelter of  those who are bonded to me.  And then....I figure....if it isn't happening, then I must have been a fool thinking that we had that.
I want to talk to you for real.  Tell you the most hurtful things.  I want to get it out and have you love me anyway.  But there's never a chance.
So, here I've rambled on.  Here, I have still not laid my soul bare...but I just feel so solitary.
Like there's nowhere that I'm allowed to lean.  Like nobody else in the world will tell him he's a jerk.  Like there is nobody to stand for me while I am in pain.
But, you gotta know....I'm happy.  I'm going to make it.  Even if it's alone.  I choose to be here.  I know that it's on me.  I know that it's my fault.  My decision.  What you do is your choice.  That's what I need to remember.  That I love you for who you are.  For how you want to live.  And I will be here.  Be there for you.  You are people that have changed my life.  And no matter what.....I will never forget, and I will never be the same.  I love you.
And that makes me horribly sad.