Draft 3 - New

We're standing in my driveway when you begin what amounts to the second apology I have received from you in nearly 20 years. It is the same as the first and just as insufficient. You are a new person and are sorry about what the old version of you did. Truthfully, you don't have very many memories from the time before rehab. Truthfully, I think about how much I'd like to talk to the old you instead of new you. We have some unfinished business.

Maybe I'm petty. 

Maybe I'm bitter. 

Maybe I'm just a bitch. 

All I can think is, "it must be nice."

It must be nice to be new. It must be nice not to be able to remember. 

I want to be new. I want to forget with such totality. I have asked God, but even as I asked, I knew the answer. 

This is my inheritance. Your mistakes live in my bones. While there is so much more to me than this inheritance, it is still here and still mine. 

So I guess the only thing that I have left to say is this: 

If you don't want to remember, leave me be. 

I don't hold these memories because I hate you but because I cannot forget. If you keep asking me for forgiveness, acceptance, or reassurance, your sins will come spilling from my lips. Your regrets will tumble off my shoulders. Your mistakes will surface from behind my eyes. So keep your distance. Leave me be. 

Because I am not new. I am the same. 

And I don't think I will ever be new.