The News

I got the news.

My dad's ex-wife, the one he recently got back together with and the one I refer to as my "stepmonster," died of a heart attack on Sunday.

I'm still kind of in a daze about it. I have no idea how I am supposed to feel. This woman was part of my life for 18 years. When I try to think back to anything kind she might have done for me, I come up with a blank. She was a mean, abusive, miserable woman. When she and my dad divorced seven years ago, I moved on and was glad to do so. Relieved, even, to have her out of my life. When she and my dad got back together a few months ago, I was horrified. I was even more horrified when she sent me an email telling me how good she had been to me as a child!

My answer was blunt and nasty. I don't apologize for that. After two decades, I finally told that woman what I thought of her. It felt so...I don't know. Like the weight of the world dissolved from my shoulders. Apparently, though, I am now the "bad guy" in the family, because I wrote such "terrible" things to her right before she died. As if I were Kreskin, and I could tell when she was going to die and timed my words to her just for that moment.

I'm numb. I can't bring myself to care. Or to feel anything.

I wonder if this makes me a bad person? I just don't know.

Anyway, that's why I've not been around the last few days, and I'm not sure when I'll "snap out of this." How are you supposed to feel, when someone who abused you as a child has died? All I feel is numb.