EVERYTHING LEFT UNSAID

I feel compelled to take a moment to say grace for all the times I've felt touched and have kept just how greatly so to myself. 'EVERYTHING LEFT UNSAID' is for my loved ones, gentle strangers and extra-special professionals who have guided me, taught me something valuable or held me closely in times of trouble.

---

Leoni is a nurse who was generous beyond words, gracious beyond possibility and open-minded beyond years. It is not my place to tell her story to you, but what she told me in confidence that she overcame in her lifetime shocked me to my core. The idea that something so bad could happen to somebody so good made me feel disgusted and angry with the world. Leoni, you turned hate into love, not allowing the malicious actions of another to taint what you had to offer this world. You spun those actions into a basket of gifts for me that made me feel like everything was going to be okay when everything I knew was being ripped from beneath me. Leoni, you showed me love. And won your war with your past. And for that, I consider you to be one of the bravest and strongest people I've ever been so lucky to know.

---

I never told my mum how scared and broken I felt when she asked me for help in planning my funeral. I never told her how lost I felt in the world as she expressed how close I was to death, and yet I still felt I wasn't sick enough to be dying. I didn't tell her how it made me want to hold her all night in my arms alongside my dad and dog and be taken from the mess my eating disorder had created for all of us. 'How will you ever forgive me?', I thought, if I drive myself to do the one thing I'd promised you I'd never do? What kind of liar would that make me? What kind of daughter would that make me? What kind of person would that make me? And equally, how would I ever forgive myself? I already cannot forgive the things I am doing to you every day. However, for now, I am here. And I will die trying for you. You must know that. I will not give up even if it gives up on me.

---

I never told you just how badly it hurt me when you bullied me. Every instance where you snickered behind my back, played tricks and made a joke out of everything it was to exist as I ripped slowly and painfully at a world that, up until you, I'd considered to be whole. You took pride in knocking me down. You took joy in watching me drown because you were at bar, in safety next to your friends, your allies. I never told you that I didn't just respond with disliking you. No, additionally, I'd become afraid of you. You tormented me so critically that it wasn't just the sight of you I feared; it was the mention of your name that could whisper like wildfire in my ears, burning me to pain. You were in my nightmares. Did you know that at 22, I still sometimes have nightmares about you? They affected me so bitterly that they never left. A part of me won't ever belong to you because I'm stronger than that. However, a part of me will always be gone because of you. You took it from my soul, then you diced it like onions and finally, discarded it like rubbish. They say there's power in secrets, which is why I would write your name. But in doing that, I'd be a bully, and I'm not that. That's what you are. And my power is never becoming the thing you could've made me become.

The hate you had to give is not the hate I now have.

It stopped at me. You didn't win. You lost all of that destruction you had to offer this world.

---

Some of those anecdotes I proclaimed felt relieving to get off my chest, whilst others felt sentimental. I believe the truth is never a bad thing to have out in the open, even in times when it's painful, for it'll always set you free. Everything left unsaid has begun to be said, and that allows for harmony, offers reflection and creates the chance for reconciliation.

Kisses,

COS