“Isn’t it funny. I’m enjoying my hatred so much more than I ever enjoyed love. Love is temperamental. Tiring. It makes demands. Love uses you, changes its mind. But hatred, now, that’s something you can use. Sculpt. Wield. It’s hard, or soft, however you need it. Love humiliates you, but Hatred cradles you.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander
If there ever was a sentence that stood out on what explains my mother, White Oleander by Janet Fitch put it into words.
This is my open letter to you because you keep posting on my blog even when I have nothing more to do with you. Your hatred is everything to you. My love for my children and my husband and friends are guiding lights to me. Your obsession to ruin my happiness is not going to work. I am happy; I am successful, I am funny, I am smart, and you are not going to change that with your words.
“The phoenix must burn to emerge.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander
I don’t know what happened in your life or your trauma that made you this way. For me, I know and acknowledge the years and cycles of abuse in this family. It is your choice, just as it was mine, to break the generational cycles of abuse. I am not a victim, and I choose the path to love others and give kindly back to the world. If you tried to honestly heal, the world would become colourful for you. Choices we all have them, and we all make them to shape our lives. You choose to live in darkness. That is your choice to cause harm because you are hurting. You are scared that owning your truth would make you vulnerable. You made the choice to live in the prison called hatred and vindictiveness. Once you release that prison and acknowledge your inner child in pain, I hope you can set yourself free of the shadows that eat you day in and day out.
“I understood why she did it. At that moment I knew why people tagged graffiti on the walls of neat little houses and scratched the paint on new cars and beat up well-tended children. It was only natural to want to destroy something you could never have.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander
You keep trying to break my spirit. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. Only to get the same result. You’re not going to break me like you try to break everyone in your life. I will not allow you to drain my energies and my success because you love seeing misery. I am not alone, as I am surrounded in love. Love from children, love from my husband, and love from true friends. I’m sorry to say, you will never take that love and that support away. I hold the spirit of the elk in my heart and the spirit of the grizzly bear guiding me to protect myself and those who I love. Furthermore, I will always fight for my family and friends and protect them from people who love emotional violence instead of a path to higher self. You have no power over me, and that makes you angry. Unchained and emotionally protected, I am not bound to you. I will not bow or fold to someone who only takes and never gives back in love. We are not alike, and I will never stray in your path to do what you do to others. Telling you no and setting boundaries are not regrets I hold, but value dearly.
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.
unknown.
You choose words like art, I give you that. What you don’t give is the admittance that something is wrong with your mind. You need to admit to yourself that you are broken. No animal or human you choose to harm will fill that hole. I hope one day, when the silence becomes deafening, you can see your broken spirit and mend it. I really hope that when it comes to judgment day, you see the true reality of the damage you caused. Now I will enjoy being myself. I will continue being a business owner; and I will continue being a mother to beautiful sons who will never know of you, or your evils, and I will continue to live without you. I am done with you and your abuse. Furthermore, I really hope you can get help one day and heal your broken mind before it’s too late.
From your daughter,
Aleszandria Barg