It was always going to be a famous story that never ended, because we’ll never stop thinking about that time in our lives and what it did to us. I was really, really paranoid walking around Fredericksburg with 10yo because I am Southern and polite enough never to show the pain running underneath but 10yo would spot it in a New York minute.
And hit me in the gut with words the way Aada’s kid used to when he was a toddler.
She said that she threw three sizes due to creating new humans, and DAMN IT, she is right again.
I have no idea what the pain of childbirth is like, but I hear about it in graphic detail, like signing up for a graduate course very, very quickly. Because it’s not just Aada I have to watch out for. We’re all in the same general area, and due to my conversations with Aada, “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.” I don’t mean anything but “this might be unpleasant.” It’s just not something I’d really like 10yo to see, and not because there is absolutely anything wrong with it. Aada is delightful online, so I’m sure she’s capable of faking it in person or not being seen. My very, very good bet is on the latter. My only point is that I’m not afraid of being seen by anyone but 10yo. My mother lion has gone off and I’m very protective.
Aada painted a very negative picture of me over the years because she treated me exactly like she treats herself. What I wanted was seen as intrusive down to the most minute detail. What I wanted was any kind of reassurance that any of this was real. I was baring my soul on paper and she was using it as entertainment and provocation. My life was just a story in her head, but at least she knew how I felt. How it would be if she actually showed up- hanging with Tiina, Brian, and the kids at the farm. An invitation she said she’d think about, and that meant the world even if she wasn’t serious.
I don’t want the vibe that there’s danger. I want the vibe to be that my situational awareness is turned up to 11 when the kids are with me. I don’t have the tools that Aada does to be as intrusive into her life as she could be into mine when she’s angry. And she’s angry a lot. It felt like being held hostage. Neither one of us could let go, and she wouldn’t let us get any closer. My needs never mattered one bit, and she said that she never intentionally hurt me. She maintained a very elaborate lie for many years, and it was never the first lie that mattered. It was the CVS receipt.
We met in 2013, which by my recollection is a long time ago.
“I was on a flight home.”
It was all bullshit.
My one regret in life is that I didn’t realize the magic show had started, change faces and disappear.
Stories That Are All True 