“I love you more than anything in the entire world! I love you more than I love your father…” or so she claimed almost every evening when I would find her sitting in the dining room, ordering more and more useless clothing. She owned more things, more possessions that have no sentimental value, more shirts, shoes, jewelry than any woman in the world. I was intensely fascinated by her intense passion for purchasing, it didn’t really matter what it was, merely handing my fathers credit card to the well-dressed cashiers was the only reason she needed to spend money. I, being a child of nine, was raised knowing my limits, being classy in the manner that I was not taught to show off my possessions. These were rules that were built, drilled inside of my innocent little body. She was precisely the opposite of anything I’ve ever known, she was so exciting, new, and different I marveled at her very being. And the best part of everything was that she loved me. She really, honest to god, truly and completely, without a doubt, adored me! Or so I thought…
By this experience, the experience that once caused me humiliation, pain, and loss now forced a new concept into my mind: she came into my life for a reason. Her manipulating ways have taught me to be quick, lie with reason, and to know peoples boundaries. For example, her daily interrogation (about every detail of my already stressful life) now causes me to be sparse with details. Her constant mood swings now are causing me to be on my feet in all situations, and to never except things, they can always change. But lastly, the fact that she abandoned my father in one of the hardest times in his entire life breaks my heart. Once your heart is broken once, especially someone who you thought of as your idol, protector, is a break that can never be repaired.
What is this experience you may wonder? After being married for about two months, she changed. She altered in subtle ways, ways that ordinary people would not understand. For example, she broke my dad’s and I’s most cherished tradition: our daddy daughter trips. Acting as our own family heirloom- carried down from my great-grandfather and to my grandfather to my father, this single tradition kept me sane during my parent’s divorce, and she, my stepmother, shattered it. This along with other things: never letting me see my dad, wearing more provocative clothing, calling my dad by annoying pet names, and most importantly, completely and utterly ignoring me. Then all of a sudden, one Sunday after noon, she demanded a divorce. Why? Because in that devious little mind of hers she found a way to manipulate her way out of the prenuptial and take his money. I cried. I cried, cried, and cried. I decided my life was ruined; my savior left me with my depressed, deserted father.
To make a long, tedious story short, my father hired lawyers after lawyers, spent sleepless nights, “dated” girls after girls, until he fairly won the case against her. The ending of this disrupted fairy tale is as many could call it, a “happy ending.” Though it may seem so, though the world may view this court battle, their relationship, as an almost miracle, “thank god she didn’t get the money” they scream. But this is believe, and this is believe strongly about, is that whether you like to admit it or not every person comes into your life, causes you anguish, pain, heart ache for a reason. Her reason I now have realized was to make me a stronger more valiant person. I am thankful to her for that, yet still carry her lies and deceit with me each and every day.