part 63

I wrote an addendum to my last post clarifying that I have no plans or intentions to randomly go around with posters yelling at people in my old neighborhood. The idea of me doing this has apparently ruffled some feathers.

I’m not playing any games.

Sometimes it feels like I am playing games with what I write – I know there are certain people who are aware of my blog, and may even read it themselves. What I really do not want is for this to be a place for me to put out all of my feelings and emotions and pain and hope, and then hear how I may have pissed someone off, and then get back on here writing what I think whoever is pissed can do with themselves.

There is nothing I have ever written here or will ever write here that I would not be willing to discuss with anyone face-to-face. I mean ANYONE.

I’m not fucking around. I write based on what I am feeling and then I post it on the internet for the whole world to see. I try to accept whatever emotions I am having as I write, and to be okay with however that comes out in words, because IT IS ALL REAL.

The people who abused me have been claiming that I am only writing about all of this because I want to get attention for my book, that I am making it up as part of some sort of completely twisted marketing strategy to sell my novel.

I don’t understand the logic behind this theory, but I also don’t understand the logic of molesting small children in a guest bathroom, and I don’t understand the logic of raping the best friend of one’s own children in a basement, and I don’t understand the logic of paying money to someone in order to have access to a child and rape and molest her again and again.

So I guess if these men want to pretend that I am saying these things about them in order to get attention so people will buy my novel, that is fine. I can accept that.

I’m not going to lie – it would be super-awesome if someone who reads my blog found out about my book and wanted to pay me money for it and market it all over the world. I would not be terribly downtrodden if someone reads my blog and sees marketable value in it and wants to use it to make a lot of money for themselves and for me.

I’m not ashamed of thinking that it would be great to make a living from writing. Sometimes I am motivated to write another blog post just to see how my stats go up with the number of people reading it. Sometimes I think about the fact that people from all over the entire world look at my blog on a regular basis (I know because that’s also in the stats), and it makes me excited to write some more just so I can put it out there and imagine all of those people reading it.

Writing this is NOT easy, and it is not particularly enjoyable. I have been writing this blog for over a year and I have not made a single dime from it.

I write this blog because it is what I HAVE. I do this because I CAN. I do it because it makes me feel better about myself and about the world.

I do this because at this point in my life it is the best I can do with my horrendously shitty past.

I have my past and I can write.

So that is what I do.

I am not stupid. I know that what has happened to me is something other people want to know about, and that if enough people want to know about it, I might find some way to support myself and my family by continuing to write about it. I also know the shit that happened to me is still happening to women and kids right this very second all over the world – and that very definitely includes this town I grew up in.

It is still happening. It is still happening!!!

So if my vapid former-neighbors want to say I am making it all up as a marketing ploy, let them say it. They can say it all they want and it does not change one fucking thing about making all of it stop.

I believe I CAN do something to make it stop. Maybe not all of it all by myself, but I can definitely make one other person feel less like a freak, and I can definitely make one other person look twice at the people around them and spot a predator, and I can definitely make one other person as pissed off as I am about all of it.

I know all of these things definitely because they have already happened. People tell me, they share with me – perfect strangers, and long-lost childhood friends, and other people I don’t know anything about because they choose to remain anonymous. They have shared with me evidence that I can make a difference in the world – in a good way!

How easy is it to hurt a child? How easy is it to attack someone who cannot defend themselves? How easy is it to make up lies about any of it ever happening so people don’t think bad things about them?

It is EASY to tear down the world. It takes hardly any effort at all.

It takes COURAGE AND STRENGTH AND TENACITY AND HOPE AND LOVE to build the world up, and those things are very difficult to come by and to hold on to and to share and to perpetuate in life.

But I know without a doubt that I have them, and I have the peace and knowledge that I am building the world up.

I am not going to go off randomly and half-cocked and hold up posters and scream and yell in front of anyone’s house, but even if I did, my concern for the discomfort it might cause those people and the people around them would be very, very, very low on my list of priorities.