Recently, Edwin Pomble, an ex who thinks I’m Satan because, well, I honestly don’t know, sent me an update on Reginald Sleeth, an earlier ex who abused me in basically all the different ways I can think of offhand.
Apparently Reginald has a pretty good life at the moment. He’s married now, just accomplished something huge that he’s wanted to do since I met him when he was seventeen, and is generally living quite a few of his dreams. Edwin just thought I should know. Edwin has never met Reginald. I never gave him any of the information beyond a first name to track Reginald down and find out the details of his life, but while Edwin and I were dating he did some snooping. Seems like, even several years later, he’s still at it to some extent. I cannot for the life of me figure out why he would go out of his way to tell me, someone he no longer talks to, what’s going on in the life of Reginald, someone he doesn’t even know, except as a “Fuck you. The man who destroyed your will to live for several years and caused longterm emotional damage that may never fully heal? He’s doing pretty awesome.” If anyone out there can suss out a realistic motivation that doesn’t include malice I would love to hear it.
It’s widely presumed that even if we don’t hate our exes we at least want to win the “Whose life is more objectively awesome?” game over them. And of course there’s a part of me that would kind of enjoy it if Reginald got some kind of karmic comeuppance and developed scurvy or something, and I got rewarded for living through that hell by finding out I was a secret space princess with the power to tame cloud unicorns. But even then I think I would (probably anonymously) send him some vitamin C pills, because I really don’t think his suffering would actually make the world any better. After so much time and so much processing, it’s hard to muster up passion enough to wish ill on someone I don’t know anymore. That scared boy who hit me and cried whenever he heard a song by The Cure is dead now, and it’s likely a completely different person now living in his body. Maybe he’s still capable of horrific things, but maybe not. Maybe he mended while I did.
I’m aware that on paper I probably lose the “Whose life is objectively more awesome?” game with all or most of my exes. For a very long time I’ve been too sick to work full time, go to grad school, or travel. I constantly struggle with my health, with my finances, getting around day to day, and I don’t get much help with any of it. I still face the aftermath of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. I am very much in love with someone who’s already married, which is not widely considered an ideal position to be in even if it’s consensual all-around. No one will be getting a “save the date” card from me probably ever, at least. I’ve also been battling mental health issues for a while now. I think a lot of my exes would probably cackle to see it laid out like that. I’m almost certain Edwin would.
But it’s okay. It might be a hard sell in light of all of the above, but my life is amazing. It’s challenging, yeah, but I’m grateful for it. I’m surrounded by incredible people at every turn. My broken body and I regularly have experiences that I will always hold in awe. I am loved. I am creating things. I am recovered from so much, and recovering from more. There is really nothing easy about my life, but I am swooning into it all the time.
It’s okay that Reginald isn’t being beaten up by the universe. It really doesn’t have anything to do with me, anyway. I’m not sure I’ve evolved yet enough to genuinely wish him well, but I’ve at least achieved indifference by now. What hurts– a little– is believing that Edwin is so far from getting to that point with me. To know that it is his wish to wound me, and remind me of wounds that made me curl into balls when he knew me. It makes me wonder if maybe somehow I deserve to have someone email me out of the blue just to try to hurt me. Maybe I’m really such a shitty person that it’s justified.
But then, I think about how people have beaten me, raped me, abandoned me, and violated my trust. They’ve told me I’m worthless and treated me like it’s true. I would never compose an email just to hurt any of them, much less one that reminded them of something horrible they’d lived through. I can’t think of anything any individual could do to me that would ever make that seem like a good idea. And I realize that Edwin’s behavior isn’t about me any more than Reginald’s happiness is.
