Trait vs Fate

Sharing something I journalled about after therapy. Sorry, no TL;DR

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There is a woman who lives in my bone structure as a warning.

Before I had a say — took the cheekbones, the temper, the way my voice drops right before it raises an axe.

Sometimes I'll be in the hallway and my heart does this ancient, animalistic thing; it pauses, some alarm going in a language far older than my existence, screaming she's found the spare key, all before the rest of me can catch up and say: no. That's just glass, it's just you.

I laugh about it after, about half a second before grief arrives, elbowing past the humour because I hoped if I laugh fast enough maybe I don't have to feel how long my body has been standing guard against a woman who has never been in my rooms. Nobody tells you about hating a resemblance; and it's not just the face that brings discomfort. I know her rage like my own handwriting, felt it rise in me, precise, merciless, my mouth, a scorched field where someone else's dignity used to be.

I have hated myself for knowing how to do that, for being better at it, for some small cruel part of me that liked how much it hurt them because they hurt me. So I went quiet instead, made a religion out of silence, telling myself this is proof I'm not her. But inside, I'm still burning, just burning me instead of them. I've built an entire personality to prove I wasn't her only to end up in the same place as her. That's the part that causes my chest to clench. Avoidance was the inheritance, not the opposite.

I want to let her in, to face her. She was somebody's daughter too, many hurt her, betrayed her, lied to her, and nobody taught her more than two options. For the first time, I've cried for the woman I've chosen not to know because of the fear that must have lived in her before she could choose to let it live in me.

This is not about forgiving... The cheekbones can stay, the low voice before the teardown can stay, but I want to choose the shape this fire takes.

I have a woman in my bone structure who trained me to flinch at the words "you're just like…" — unaware she was fashioning a weapon against herself.

And I want to love this woman so that the world does not control me by simply saying, "You're just like your mother."