Slutty twenties? Traveling twenties? Dreaming twenties? The years after high school are among the most powerful decades in our lives. And you stole mine.
There were a lot of great life lessons that inform my current writings on Medium. But the years I should have spent building my career I spent on protecting my heart. I spent on you. Trying to deal with you. Trying to escape you.
You were 45. I was 27. I tried to be enlightened enough to not mind the age gap, but something always bothered me about it. That you were never in a serious relationship, let alone married, should have tipped me off that you were not normal. And yet when our “relationship” failed, I blamed myself.
“Oh, please, like you’re scared of me. Stop it. STOP IT. You’re just trying to manipulate me. Stupid little girl.” He bellowed at me as I cowered in my bed, terrified because he’d woken and immediately started telling me that a dream he’d had “informed” him that I needed to abandon my best male friend and my father to be with him. When I expressed resistance, he shoved his penis toward me and began screaming that I owed…
