All the things he said

"Do you know why I fell in love with you back then? Because there is no other girl who is willing to give so much of herself without knowing what she will get in return.

And do you know why, despite the difficulties and responsibilities that have been piling up on me lately, I can call myself a happy person? Because you are around me and I love you every day, every hour, for countless reasons! For your fingers, your fluffy socks, the sweetest hug in the world, the best heart in the universe, and a billion other things!"

Sweet, right? An excerpt of the only letter from my husband that I have kept - not for sentimental reasons but as proof of how well-written he is, and a burning reminder that youth could be sold for words.

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A big floral box from our wedding, almost white on the sides where the sun has been hitting it throughout all of the years, is waiting for me at my childhood home. It's full of letters like this one, but on paper. Colourful cards, collected for years. Printed presentations with teddy bears and hearts. Beautiful birthday cards with even more beautiful wishes and proclamations of love... It took me about two hours to go through all of this and shred it apart. You would think I was bitter or sad, but I felt nothing. I was looking at the pile that I was creating next to me for the sake of preventing those letters and cards from ending up in some collector’s hands years from now, and I could not believe how unbothered I was, destroying my own history, my most treasured possessions for years! And then it hit me: I sold myself so cheaply! What I thought was extraordinary was just someone exercising his writing skills for his own validation. Exactly like the people he used to laugh at. It was all a lie.

For years, I was "a dream come true", I was what "brought magic in his life". Big words, bigger proclamations. In private and in public, I was claimed. I was given credit for my work behind the scenes, in private: "Because of you, I have a better relationship with my parents", "I had this success because of the advice you gave me". And for as long as I gave, without wanting recognition in return, it was fine.

Then the years went by, the ladders were climbed, and the peak was reached. What used to be a "Thank you!" became "I will never tell anyone that you have advised me to do that because then I will be the fool who does what his wife tells him to". I shaped who he was, and it was his time to shape me in return. So I became "alienated", which later became "crazy" and "inadequate".

I was told that friends were leaving me because "people don’t like to associate with those who aren’t successful".

In a moment of self-doubt, when I shared my self-doubt that I wasn’t good for anything, he said he was starting to doubt me as well.

When I showed him a picture of a beautiful woman in a floral dress in front of the pastel walls of her home and told him that this was what I wished I could be, he angrily told me that I could never be that.

"Let's be honest, you are not J.K. Rowling," was his comment on a dream of mine.

Every bit of support he had loudly given me over the years was undermined by little but consistent remarks aimed at pulling me down, consciously or not. For the world, however, it was all presentable: like the Facebook status on the wedding anniversary we spent arguing and in different rooms, that said something deep about "the importance of life choices we make", accompanied by a picturesque photo from our wedding day.

What stood out to me the most, however, was a random evening at the end, when I simply asked him not to be rude to me, to which he responded: "No man will ever treat you better than I do!"

Those were the things he said. And recently, I found them all to be true.

I had indeed been alienated and become socially awkward, not understanding the rules of modern-day relationships of any kind.

But then again... I learned how to enjoy my own company, even if it was not to be enjoyed by others. Then I found people who liked that about me and joined the weirdness, understood the emotional outbursts and kept me company.

I did lose a lot of friends who started seeing me as a burden. In some cases, they would show their frustration with me, with my life, with how stagnant everything had been; and in other cases, they would try to hide the real reason for them pulling away, but it would slip into words, phrases and gestures. Mainly, however, in their silence. But then again, I also found friends who stayed. Friends who would show up with consistency, even when I was at my lowest. Even when I was deemed a failure by every societal norm, they found me precious.

I am not J.K. Rowling, nor have I ever attempted to be. But then again, I never stopped writing, and I never stopped finding people who enjoyed what I had to say.

And I will never be that woman I saw on Instagram, and that's fine.

But then again, I started wearing floral dresses and opened all my senses to the beauty that had been surrounding me all along. And when you are surrounded by something so full of life and colour, you cannot help but absorb it into yourself. Now, when I meet the elderly couple who live in my building, they tell me that their day has become better bon meeting me. And that is just precious.

He told me no man would ever treat me better than he did, and sure enough, I fell in love with a man who made me feel completely worthless. As if to validate his words, I was constantly counting all the reasons why I'm unlovable, believing respect and kindness were only given in exchange for beauty and obedience. Yet, I knew it even back then - if that's the best I could hope for, I am better off alone.

But kindness finds its way, and I have indeed been treated nicely by men: be it strangers on the street, who would pay me a compliment, or friends, who would send me words of encouragement when I needed it the most. Some men have made me smile, and that already is strangers treating me better than he did.

For someone who loves words, I paid a great price to learn that they are worth nothing. Not the good ones, nor the bad ones. Words seem to be a fast-expiring currency - just wind between our teeth, fading ink on paper, or black pixels on a white background, soon to be forgotten.

All the things he said were lies. All of them. For the longest time, those words defined my reality, but now it's mine to build: with intention and probably less talking.

Not writing, though.

NIB and Ember