Dear friend,
Oh how I don’t even deserve to call you that.
I have betrayed you. I have betrayed you in the worst
possible way, and I am ashamed.
I can’t even imagine what you must think of me, but I wouldn't blame you for any of it. I have treated you terribly despite your constant loyalty to me. I know that I have a lot of ground to cover if I am ever to make this right again, and I understand that I can’t undo any of the horrible things that I did to you.
For that, I am so so sorry.
I've never treated you as a friend. I have never treated you
as though you were worthy of love, attention, care, or admiration. Rather, I
have believed and acted upon the lie that you are worthless and you are wrong;
that you are a source of shame.
I have spoken to you so harshly; thrown at you demeaning
daggers of lies. I've looked right at you and told you how disappointed and
disgusted I was with you. There were times I couldn't even bring myself to look
at you.
I was so shallow and hurtful.
I let other people talk so cruelly about you. I let them
tease you and call you terrible names. I sat silently by as they slandered you
and told me how worthless and ugly you were. I never defended you, and instead
I accepted all of the criticism as true.
I was so embarrassed by you. I hated the way you looked and
I hid you away from the world hoping no one would notice your flaws.
I wrongly blamed you for much of my pain, believing that you
were the source of my problems. I convinced myself that it was your fault I had
been so hurt, and I never hesitated to tell you so.
I was so heartless and misguided.
I have always been unfaithful to you. Regardless of how much
you ever did for me, I was never happy enough with you. I've always wanted
something else, something more, something different. You've never been good
enough for me, though you've always been far more than I deserved.
I even tried to make you something different, instead of
taking joy in what you already were. I tried to destroy your uniqueness instead
of celebrate it. I tried to change you, and I yelled at you in anger because
you weren't different, continually asking you why you couldn't be more like
“that.”
I have deprived you of so much, and I have selfishly acted
in ways that have jeopardized your health and strength. I have taken away your
most basic needs and used them as a reward if you performed well. (Oftentimes I wouldn't even give them to you if you had). I punished you for desiring what
feeds you your next breath, and I tried to train you to no longer crave those
things, hurling insults at you when you did.
I have unrealistically expected so much from you, even in
times of sickness, malnourishment, or injury. In moments wherein I should have
been taking care of you, I didn't love you enough to allow you rest. Instead I
called you weak and worthless for hurting, and I wanted nothing to do with you.
I hated you. I hurt you. I belittled you.
It hurts my heart just to think of how lowly I treated you,
and I am ashamed of my actions. I would never allow someone I love to be
treated in such a way, and yet I saw no fault in doing it to you.
I have been horribly wretched to you.
My dear friend, you were never wrong; I was.
I can never make up
for the years of hurt and damage between us, but I can assure you our future
together will be different.
I want to celebrate you. I want to praise you for the number
of amazing things you do daily. I don’t thank you enough for your loyalty, nor
do I commend you enough for your strength. You are an amazing creation, and I
am astounded by your brilliance.
I want to tell you that you are beautiful, so beautiful, and
that I am in awe of you. You are perfect as is, and I want to take delight in
every imperfection. I am forever sorry that I tried to take away from you your
uniqueness, not recognizing that it is what makes you who you are.
I want to love you, and I want to love you well. I want to
treat you as the special, radiant being that you are. I want to take care of
you and respect what you need.
You are wonderful. You are magnificent. You are stunning.
I am going to prove to you that things will be different
now, though before I was blind to my faults and your beauty. I will strive to
renew our relationship as it should have been from the beginning, and I will
not allow anything to come between us.
I love you, I do.
Thank you for always being my faithful friend. Now, I vow to be yours.
Love, Mary.
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