I admit it, my ego is bruised. In several locations. Almost visibly. There’s nothing I can really do about it other than wear the wear-and-tear like a badge of non-shame, because it’s really no honor to be treated this way, especially by entities who proclaim love and concern and end up treating you like an indentured servant. Which technically, you are, but that doesn’t excuse the treatment. It almost makes it worse, this two-facedness of a proclamation of value and support that is in the very next moment undermined and denigrated. And who would want to keep going through that over and over again, with every heartbeat potentially bringing an elation followed by deflation?

Still, we do it. Or at least I do. I know I do, and I know I’d rather not. I’d rather be Teflon, that all of this–in its murky undefinability–would bounce right off me, deflected, and given nary a thought, of either a first or a second nature. I try to focus on the goal, the dream, the aim. And sometimes it works. And the other times? That’s when I feel like this, at some sort of swirling epicenter of things way outside anyone’s control, and when a hand emerges to save me, I’m all too aware that in grasping it, I accept that what redeems me may also, in precious seconds, smack me for my naivety.

Places that have fostered growth have done so reluctantly, providing just enough water for a seed to grow, barely enough for it to thrive. And when foliage develops, everyone’s surprised, but only you seem pleased. You know you and they have both worked hard; they could have given you a greenhouse, and the glory would have been theirs. And that would have been okay.

But they didn’t. They remained miserly with their affection and encouragement, and utilized you, in the coldest, most mechanical sense, not for your potential, but according to their own preference.

I still cling to what is possible, despite their best efforts to the contrary. But this tenacious belief sometimes edges toward madness, a road that leads back to the vortex, back to the cycle of affectionate violence or violent affection. If I succeed, many will claim credit. And if I don’t, they will assign me the blame. And when the choices you’re left with are success without acknowledgment or blame without basis…it becomes a matter of self-respect.

It’s enough to drive a woman to…