Dear Journal,
The reason I’m not in Sunday school like I usually am is that Carmen came over at 12:30 last night and mom woke me up at 1:15. We’re taking her back home.
Ciao!
Love Meg
Dear Baby Me,
This is a really short entry but I’m just writing back to you about this one today because I think it’s important in ways that you didn’t really understand at the time and interestingly I think you were intentionally vague in this entry. Mom told you a lot of things that were maybe inappropriate, although I don’t always remember when she told you what. In this case what I remember was that her best friend, Ashley’s mother, was in a marriage that was very unhappy. I don’t know or don’t remember the details. If I had to guess I would suspect there was emotional and verbal abuse that was happening. I believe this was not the last time that she would show up at your house in the middle of the night.
This won’t make sense to you now but this is important. It’s important because when your mom tells you that Ashley is just a “bad kid” who is making life so hard for her mom, that’s not true. When she implies repeatedly that Ashley is just a liar and a manipulative girl, as if those things happened in a vacuum, as if they were traits she was born with, inexplicable things to blame her for, those are lies. Those same lies will be used against other friends you have and they’ll be used against you. You won’t be able to hear this for so many years but try to understand as soon as you can that they are lies. They serve a purpose and it’s not to benefit you. Ashley was not a bad kid, neither are you. Nothing happens in a vacuum.
Hang in there, kiddo.
Love, Me
All the Stories Are True 