Wasted Years

Things I don't miss about you:

You mindless half-laugh at the end of every utterance: such a display of nerves and sad desperation to be approved of, included, getting it.

Your foul breath that I never felt able to mention, making me turn my head away from you.

Your poorly-hidden jealousy; mean spiritedness greeting each minor success that isn't your own.

Your chav accent - south london old school roots in your every sound. It's a relief to not have to mentally correct so much of your speech. You always sounded stupid. I never have to listen to how you "done it" etc ever again.

The continuous, day to day Ouches you spluttered with every minor bump or knock. As if saying it out loud would garner you some sympathy. Passive all the way. 'Oh, please notice poor little me'. No.

No enthusiasm, no "Oh I'd love that!", no joie de vivre, no courage in the face of adversity, no blitz spirit and gung ho and galvanising into action. Just listless, bored, disinterested, cold gloom. Hovering over us like sick fog. Sucking the joy out of every room you sit in. How miserable you made me and how exhausted I felt every day trying to include you, cheer you, jolly you along, share my heart with you. Only to be met by dim incomprehension.

I don't miss having to decide everything for us, having to chivvy you along to be a part of our family, to take an interest, to decide something, to say "This is what I want". I always had to guess. Always. It made me feel so anxious and worried, having to guess all the time. Because I was tired after years of asking. You never changed. Never grew. Never tried to be a better person. Just the same old vague, silent, self-absorbed gloom, day in and day out.

I don't miss the lack of kindness, the lack of reaching out to another human being in the same house as you, seeing their pain and trying to help. Your coldness was shocking in the extreme. You have an unkind, withered spirit and I don't miss being hurt by that. I never want again in my life that feeling of not being enough. Of seeing myself reflected in your eyes and knowing I'm not good enough for you, not what you expected, not something. I hated feeling so bleak all the time in your company, so not-good-enough. You were always on the lookout for something different, something more, something other. Never satisfied. Always grumbling. That grumbling made me feel sick. Tired and despairing and sick.

Never again will I allow anyone close to me in any way if they have not had some kind of therapy, tried to make themselves a more enlightened person. I am free of the darkness you infected my home and my heart with. I will never allow such a thing to happen again.

8 years, I wasted.