Reply to an "Anonymous" Commenter

Since receiving this “anonymous” comment:
“It is a sad thing to see,,,,families torn apart by anger and bitterness.....but you are the pot calling the kettle black!!! I have no pity for someone like you. But wait....maybe someone like you should be pitied. Someone that has no clue about anything. Do not ever think you know what went on....because you dont. We are glad we never have to see you. You are pathetic,” in response to this post, I’ve been doing a lot of back and forth deliberation in my mind on how to respond to it.
When I first signed into my blogger account, I was elated to find two unmoderated comments (nearly half my annual influx) awaiting my scrutinization and approval. As I read through this comment, as my pulse quickened, and my stomach rolled, I realized that this was my first piece of hate mail, which, I won’t lie, was pretty exciting. But when I got to the end of this ridiculous rant of retaliation, I realized that despite first appearances, this commenter wasn’t anonymous. It was my ex-stepmother.
Not from just some brief, mid-life-crisis marriage between my dad and some one twenty years his senior. No, this is the Ruthie mentioned in the entry I’ve linked. The one towards whom, along with my dad, I’ve harbored bitter feelings regarding my sorry adolescence, but was actually beginning to forgive when the pettiness of such grudges bludgeoned me in the head with my Grandmother’s death. I have known this woman since I was two. She acted as my mother until I moved out of my parent’s house when I was sixteen.
So naturally I was a bit shaken up by the comment. I smoked my first cigarette of the day at 5 o’clock in the evening after reading it. I even shed a few tears.
As I’m sure you have noticed, I have absolutely no problem with airing my personal business right here on my very own cozy little blog. I could tell you a multitude of things to convince you of, not just my ex-stepmother’s mistakes (we aren’t talking about my dad here), but her evilness as well. I could insult her, belittle, and berate her. I could be mean, very very mean. And believe me, in the days since I received the comment, I have written countless searing retorts in my mind. But after no small amount of reasoning with my self, and an even not smaller amount of reasoning from Cris, I’ve decided against that. Actually, Cris doesn’t even think I should respond, but to me, this isn’t some random insult from an internet surfer who has exhausted their supply of porn. This is someone who has impacted my life severely, and despite the positive connotation of the word ‘impacted’, I do not mean it that way. I mean that, although I won’t be mean, I don’t care about being the bigger person. I care that this ‘anonymous’ hater know how things really are.
So here goes:
One big thing…bitterness and anger didn’t destroy our family. Lies did. Your lies. You know what I’m talking about.
Second, even if my family had been destroyed by bitterness and anger, what’s it to ya? You removed yourself from my family when you cheated on my dad and left him for some one else’s husband. I know you’re thinking to yourself, “She doesn’t know what went on. Todd cheated on me too.” Well, I did know. Hello, I did live with both of you, and it isn’t as if you quietly discussed all of your problems behind the locked doors of your bedroom, though some times you did yell through them. No, you screamed about them, daily. And don’t believe for a second that I’m in the dark about things that went on in our house. I know more than you think.
Also, as a quick aside, and I know I’m being a little mean here, but what the hey? Isn’t it interesting how quickly you ceased to be considered family despite your many years involved in it, and how my mom is still considered family by my dad’s family despite her many years absent? Very interesting. Very telling.
Thirdly, you say I don’t know what went on. Even if that were true, it’s completely moot, since I do know that despite adult situations that children can’t understand, there is a right way that kids should be treated. They should come first; they should be educated, if not in school, then in the home school you withdrew them from public school to be in; they shouldn’t be withheld from their education in order to raise their younger siblings, clean the house and do the laundry. These things seem simple enough, and yet you failed to accomplish them in raising your first round of kids. I hope you’ve grown up for Tori and Julia. Maybe some day you’ll grow up enough to understand and admit that despite what you went through, how you did Melody and me was wrong.
Lastly, and this is last just because I don’t really feel like devoting too much more energy to this, either you are severely mentally deficient, or you didn’t actually read the posting to which you so rudely replied. I was trying to let go of petty grudges and bitterness because I saw, in the face of a loved one’s death, that they don’t fucking matter. I guess I had overestimated you in imagining that maybe time and mortality, or even your religion that teaches compassion and forgiveness, had done the same. Well, that’s all blown to hell. I don’t forgive you. I don’t because you don’t even admit you were wrong, and being the person that you are, that everyone knows you are (trust me on that one), you never will.
So maybe I am the kind of person who should be pitied. I had a lousy past with some lousy people in it. Now I’m happy, healthy, in love, in school, and I don’t allow those kinds of people, people like you, to be a part a part of my life. Please, pity me. My life sucks.