Dear Juliet...
Dear Juliet,
I write to you with a heavy heart, I fear another goodness has lost her light. I was deep in my own world through the wonder of books, when I heard a soft sob echo through my patio door, now mind you this, I lived in a small one bedroom one bath on what was considered the bad side of town. Well the street next to the bad side. Attempted to ignore the childlike cry outside my door I continued to devour every word of my entrancing stories in peace. Yet 30 minutes later the sobs almost a whisper start to turn to voices, I stepped outside to feed my curiosity and found what looked like a 14-year-old girl buried between her legs. As I shuffle around the stairs, blocking my full view an older Indian women approaches the girl and sits next to her. I assume she is with her and return to my stories, a couple more pages in I hear the sob start again. I try to stop myself but my legs felt more compassion then my mind did. I found myself walking over and squatting down next to her, and began to ask the basic questions,
“Are you okay?”,
“Are you hurt?”,
“What’s wrong?”.
Tears pouring down her face she glanced up at me, her thick black headband showed the youth in her features but her true age was obvious. She tells me she is 21 and it dating the guy in apartment 29. It’s the cliche boyfriend-girlfriend drama, he won't pay any attention to me and he's mean when his friends are around, I don't feel appreciated. Truthfully I couldn’t exactly retain all the words coming from her due to the fear of being attacked by fire ants that like to set up camp near my front door. I simply introduced myself and told her what I thought she needed to hear:
“Yeah, boys suck”,
“I hate men”,
“You’ll find the right one someday”,
So on and so forth. While I knew she was agreeing with me to be kind she saw through my sorry attempt at sympathy. So I connected with her in a different way, I told her my boyfriend-horror stories. The first guy I told "I love you" to told me we need to have sex so he could confirm and assure that he loved me back. Or how about the guy that may have hit me once or twice and ended up cheating on me with a girl who not only has the same name as me but two days before we broke up he asked me if I knew her and if she was single. But my stories opened her eyes to the fact that everyone has a rough go when it comes relationships at some point in their life, one party is always going to find faults in the other or within themselves.
She started to take my words to heart.
Now, that was a first; someone, a total stranger, listened to my advice. This girl agreed to walk back to retrieve her forgotten items and I saw her walk with a sense of purpose, hesitating but still with a thought in mind. She admitted her fear of him she said through his being embarrassed by her but I saw the physically fear that rattled her. When we walked past the patio door and approached the front door we turned away so she could do this alone. We kept our distance in order to give privacy but yet be within earshot in case something happens.
After a bit of talking in hushed tones, the black headband walks over and says she will stay with him until she can figure everything out. Sadness suffocated her confidence and took control once again. The ache in her eyes contradicted the gratitude she spoke. She disappeared another beacon of light covered by those only filled with darkness.
Memories of repressed feelings flood my entire being.
Being in constant fear for not only your emotional safety but physical safety is an overwhelming emotion. I write to you with this sadness in my heart and ask,
“What do I do in order to cope with the destruction of a fellow women's will?”
How can I, a woman who has a very deep connection when it comes to toxic relationships, use my experience to help prevent such a tragedy from happening again? To see the light of a fellow women be crushed under the foot of a controlling force. It doesn’t even matter that it was a man. What matters is the crushing of the will.
The real question I am asking is, “How can I help those who feel the weight of being controlled by an imposing force?” and “what should I do to deal with these feelings?”
Sweet Juliet, how can the world be filled with so much ugly and hate when it is love and beauty that makes it turn?
Love,
Anonymous