Sarah:
There are two family members that I will refer to by name in this blog. You are one of them.
The first time I got engaged, I wanted to break the engagement. You told me I couldn't because it would be breaking a committment, and that it wasn't a good thing to do, to break committments. I remember thinking then that was the stupidest comment I'd ever heard you make. I was wrong. And considering some of the absolute crap that's flown from your mouth over the years, having one thing be more stupid than another is truly an achievement.
I remember the day I was told to be prepared to lose every friend I had. You however, were never a friend, then again, I never considered you family either.
To be honest, I wasn't sure that I really had any friends left to lose! But, I was wrong. I still had friends, well, I guess they were friends in their own eyes, but they weren't truly my friends, since they were so fast to walk away when things became difficult to me.
I'm reading this amazing book by Fara Margolese called "Off the Derech", where she discusses the potential reasons for so many observant Jews going off the derech (path). She posits that the potential reasonings is perhaps the concept of the bigger the jew one wants to be, the more one has to reject and be nastier to another.
I found that out first hand. *I* cannot be exposed to my "friend's" children. It matters little that I was the victim... as long as I pretend that all is fine, and that I dress like everyone else, act like everyone else, and behave like a good, suppressed "little woman", I can have all the friends I want. But, soon as I start to show my vibrancy and light, bye bye friends!
I can't wait to see what happens when PMS and basic human sexuality hits these homes. If fairly simple questions like "why would a "frum" woman dress like that?" sends some of my "friends" into a tizzy to the point where they won't look at me or even speak to me in public.. I cannot imagine the "mommy, where do babies come from?" question doing!
The funniest thing, well, perhaps not funny, sad even more? Is that compared to some of the frummest of the frum in Lakewood Eir Hakodesh, New Jersey, dress far less modestly than I do! My clothing are not so tight that it's obvious whether or not I'm wearing a bra! And, in spite of the ludicris, obnoxious, and frankly none of their damn business nature of the question as to whether or not I wear a wig, I DO cover my hair, ALL of it. Not one single, itty bitty strand shows. Not one. Primarly, because I have thyroid disease, and so I haven't got any hair!
Does that mean I'm more frum or less? I think that's a question I need to ponder...
But, because I don't wear stockings in the summer, and my shoes have heels that are very high.. and I always look put together, and frankly, I wear less makeup than Barnum and Bailey... *I* am different.
I am proud of who I am. Maybe that is why I am your target, because you are ashamed of yourself.
I used to love getting those boxes full of your old makeup. The used eyeshadows, the half used lipsticks, the little perfumes that you did not like. Even fully grown, I looked forward to your emptying out your medicine and makeup cabinets every year so that I would get a small token of whatever junk you had for me...
I was pathetic.. holding out for a little symbol of your attention...
I lived across the street from you for four years, and you came into my home one time. You ignored every single invitation to my home, though you went to my other family members for meals all the time. The only time I saw you come to my home, was the second shabbos after I was assaulted... when I was in hiding... and when you came snooping around for information.
Everyone knows you are a gossip... you just proved that fact to yourself. And when I wouldn't open the front door, because I wasn't home (I was actually at the neighbor's home), you went around to the back door, sneaking around in the wet grass, and knocking on the door that is never used, old and rusted..)
After shabbos, you sent me an email, with details, telling me how the first time you came the paper was out, and the second time the paper had been brought in. How the first time the storm door hadn't been locked and the second time it was, how you'd looked in the windows and the house didn't look empty... and how you just did not believe the things that I had said happened the day of the assault (in spite of the doctor's report, the police report, the witness report, and the pictures), and how you hoped that for my sake, and the sake of my beautiful children, I would "get the help I needed". Oh, and yes, I still have the copy of the emails you sent. I'm saving them for posterity.
By the way, I also have the email your husband sent me after our little meet and greet at the butcher store in May of this year. That was delightful.
Thanks for the advice. I'm taking it. I'm getting the help I need to stay away from you and the rest of your family. Feel free to take your own advice.
And there, by the grace of God, go I...
