Before the Party

I want to do good. At my old job i was doing some good, but mostly i was getting shit upon, which isn't good for anyone. In a week I will be going back to that place for a party for my comrade. I am terrified! I keep dreaming about it. I keep thinking about it.

Part of me feels strong enough to go back, to see the place that slowly sucked the life out of me. To see the people who hurried that process along, and also those who saw it happening, but couldn't do anything about it, and even those who saw it happening, and could have stopped it, but didn't. This part of me knows these people have lost their power over me. My one boss, who I pity more than anything else, lost her ability to hurt me when I stopped working for her. My other boss, who I don't quite trust anymore, and probably never will again regardless of whether I work for her or not, I am no longer dependent on for protection (which was rarely given, though often promised), so she too has lost her power to hurt me, by action or inaction.

But there is another part of me, which is scared and shaking in her boots. Its the little girl in me, the one who doesn't want to go to the doctor because the last time she went in there she got a shot and it hurt, even though they said it wouldn't.

The only way forward is through. I will face my fears. I will look into the faces of those who hurt me the worst. I will smile, I will say charming things, I will tell them the truth about how well I am doing, and if they ask me to come back, to help them out, even just for a little while I will say no, I learned my lesson there, I don't want to learn it again.

Perhaps what I am really afraid of though, is seeing the people who loved me there. The ones who were just as helpless as I was. The ones who saw me falling apart but could do nothing to help me, and nothing to stop it from happening. How do I tell them they just weren't enough? that as much as i loved them they were not worth it. or that they failed me. how to i accept that? that they both loved me and failed me?