Dear World,
I'm just like some of you.
I don't buy the bull. I don't play the games that get me hurt. I don't feel charmed by cocky grins and I definitely don't lose my underwear over them. And if push comes to shove, I shove back with relish because no means no to me and not 'why-don't-you-try-and-see.'
There are those who called me the strong kind of female. Someone to be proud of. Someone for young girls to emulate. Someone who could teach heartbreakers that their own hearts would prove just as fragile in my hands.
Then there are those who called me the b-word in canine terms. Those who called me frigid and spiteful because I didn't know better. Those who accused me of hate because my definition of love isn't one where my heart and spirit are broken and bled for someone else's pleasure.
And while it might seem that I wear an armor of steel—unaffected and invincible—the cuts went deep. It hurt but more than that, it angered me.
I deserved someone good to and for me. I wasn't going to settle for the first person off the street to pay me attention. I was holding out for someone I valued and who valued me back. And for that I was called rude names and made to feel like I was asking for too much. So many people around me lived with what they got. Why shouldn't I? And in asking 'Why should they?' I became an enemy, not a champion of what I believed everybody should want for themselves. In turning people's scars into my personal map of where I did not want to go, I painted a target sign on my back.
People came to see me as an outwardly hostile man repeller of some sort who was so miserable I was questioning other people's 'happy' relationships in an effort to turn them into me. It's sad to see an iron stance become the ball and chain people strap around your ankle and drown you with. Even sadder is that you're being punished for a cause that went nowhere because most of the people you tried to help are still stuck in the same vicious cycle, either because they're still in denial or they can't fall on the same blade you died on.
It's been years.
It's been many a cycle.
It's been too many scars.
I'm still here. Still standing my ground. Still spiting the skeptics.
Because you know what?
I did meet someone who is good to and for me. Someone who charms me when he smiles at me in the quietest of moments and holds my hand in the most unexpected of times. And each day, I thank my stars for waiting. For seizing what I deserved and not just settling.
They can call me whatever they want. Judge me for the value I place on myself.
I don't hear it anymore.
I'm too busy being happy.
Love,
ninyatippett
