Mail...

In between clients I sit at the computer and check my email. There is a message from Jeff sitting in my Inbox. My heart drops to my stomach as I open it. I read his words, each one of them searing into my brain and suddenly I am no longer twenty eight sitting in the break room of my place of employment but seventeen in my parent’s room where they kept the computer the day after cheering at my first football game my junior year of high school. My seventeen year old self is opening email sent “anonymously” by some folks with nothing better to do that evening, tears filling her eyes at the unsavory sentences splayed across the screen.
“What’s the matter?” my dad asks upon walking in on me.
I explain the screen.
“Just ignore them Melissa.” he told me.
Deep down in my gut I knew their words to be untrue as I know Jeff’s are. No one lives in my brain. No one knows what I’m feeling or not feeling. No one is living my life for me and can’t tell me what’s going on or not inside of me. He’s upset with me and is hurting. I can see all of that but the short paragraph in front of me cuts through my center and touches a nerve that is so insanely sensitive and already feels so exposed that I am reduced to a brief, albeit intense, bout of crying before I pick myself up, dust myself off and get on with my life. I know all the way down to the white meat of my soul that none of this is true.
I go back to work, all smiles because I’m ok. No matter what. I’m starting to see that I can trust myself. I can take care of myself. I don’t need to give any more energy to this situation.
Later my phone lights up with a text from Jeff.
“How are you?”
I exit out of the message and finish my work day. I have nothing to say. Something is still eating at my hands as they’ve not quite healed up as I thought they would. Something is still bugging my brain. Parts of me want to attack him, say mean things back, parts of me want to calmly, and simply respond and another part of me wants to ignore it altogether.
The next day while I’m writing at the Unicorn I get another text from Jeff. He still wants to remain in touch, still wants to talk. I lose my mind. Rage boils underneath my skin lighting up my veins and has me gripping the phone so hard I might break it. I want to throw it across the room but not before dialing his number and unleashing a kind of crazy I save only for the Atlanta interstate at five in the afternoon on Friday.
I don’t want to lose Jeff. I don’t want to be mean to him. I love him dearly and don’t want to lose touch but for right now I’m raw, deeply saddened, and angry all at the same time.
“What would you like me to say?”
“Anything.”
“You send me a vile email and expect me to respond?!”
Our texting goes back and forth. He feels something else is going on with me and I’m not giving him the whole truth. He wants whatever it is that I’m holding on to whether it’s anger or not.
I am truly intrigued by this. Rob was the last person to encourage the admission of my feelings. Jeff is the only one who has actually pulled this hard. He pulls when talking is hard for me, when I don’t want to and still pulls when I do, letting more of me spill out onto him. No one has ever wanted my crazy as much as Jeff.
I won’t give it up though. Nope. I can do this in a calm way. There is no need for the Exorcist-style scream fest that could possibly erupt. I’ll give him the last piece as calmly as I can. I put my phone away and head to work.
Earlier in the week at OA I was asked to give a lead on Sunday August 8th. This means speaking for 15-20 minutes about the topic of the week which is Step Eight. That step is to list people we have harmed and be willing to make amends to them all. Upon agreeing to do this I had to take a quick inventory and make sure I had nothing that needed “cleaning up.” I currently feel I can’t give this lead without being one hundred percent honest with Jeff. I’ve never had to say any of this before.
I did it though, I typed it up and clicked “send” watching the computer do it’s job before displaying “message sent” at the top of the screen. I exhaled and went back to cutting hair.
Later, Jeff texted me simply saying thanks. Something lifted from my shoulders. I went home and to sleep without my hands itching.