Dear Ex-stepfather,
This letter will never get to you because I am doing this for personal therapy rather than anything else. In fact, none of these words will ever reach your ears as I have said everything I need to say to you and although I hope that our paths never cross again, life probably will throw us together once or twice more before you finally bite the dust. Your daughter and son are my half-sister and brother, after all, and there are still weddings and such to think about. Besides the fact that the rest of the family is dreaming about future Christmases together. Makes me want to bark personally, but so be it. I will try my best to ake sure those Christmases are not the ones that my small family chooses to spend in the States, but if we happen to have to share them, just know that we will spend as little time together as possible. And you will have no contact with my children. My husband and I will make sure of that.
You, along with many others, probably think that these words are written in bitterness but you are wrong. They aren’t written in bitterness. As I have told you before, I forgive you. It took me a long time to get to that point of forgiving you, but I did it. Not without pain, not without stepping forward and back on it many times, but I finally did it. By the Grace of God I forgave you and I stepped into a life without you. Remember that email I wrote to you about seven years ago? The one that told you to forget about the money you said you would pay, forget about contacting me and forget about me. I told you that I no longer wanted contact with you and I told you why. It wasn’t until Jake was sick that you admitted there might be some truth to what my reasons were. And even then when you apologized you still tried to blow the reasons off like I should forget and allow us to start over.
And now you have apparently changed. And while everyone else in the family believes you and is charmed by the way in which you have changed, paid back money you owed and are actually spending time with them. And that’s great. I think it’s about time, at almost age 60, for you to clean up your relationship with your children and apologize to your ex-wife. That’s great. But I am not charmed by you or your change. I don’t want your money, not that you have offered, and I haven’t changed my mind about you or our relationship.
So stop trying to get the rest of the family involved in bringing us back together. Stop playing stupid and asking everyone else why I still hold a grudge. Because I told you that I hold no grudge against you. I haven’t the time nor the energy nor the will to harbor any feeling towards you, much less hate. I have forgiven you. And God’s grace has taken away the need for me to hold a grudge and has instead allowed me to move on and have a normal life.
Unfortunately for myself, God is not able to make me forget. He can make it so that my life doesn’t revolve around those terrible memores, he can make it so that I no longer have break downs about them, but he can’t make me actually forget.
And I don’t want to forget because I don’t want my daughters around you.
This is what you must understand: your actions have consequences. Losing me, any possibility of a normal father-daughter relationship with me along with any normal relationship with my small family, are all part of the consequences. There should be more consequences for you, honestly, truelly, you should have had to suffer for these terrible actions that you took against me, but you haven’t had any and you should be grateful for it. I am not here to threaten you. I am here to tell you: this is your consequence and this is the only one, so take it and leave me alone. Leave me out of your plans. Leave the rest of the family alone about me. Just let it go.
Be grateful that you are forgiven, but understand that you cannot be forgotten.
Except for me, of course. I’m watching Pride and Prejudice. The new one. The best one ever made. And that is an opinion coming from someone who adores old movies. But the electricity between Elizabeth and Darcy is stimulating and contagious. They are such good actors. Ohhh! The scene after the church sermon when Darcy first proposes makes you want to scream, “Kiss him, you foolish girl! Just kiss him!” But she doesn’t, of course, which makes the movie continue as it should to the incredible ending that it has.
Anyway, I just finished my second cranberry scone smeared with butter and cup of herbal tea. Queenie is in bed, Principe is in Miami working 14 hour days and eating all the great food that the United States and I am scrambling to make a small scrapbook for my mother-in-law for Christmas. I have spend the day drenched in glitter and paint in order to keep Queenie busy on such a gray, cold day. Our living room door is now covered in purple and red snowflakes. Okay, okay, one is blue. There are also three “maninos”. (Snowmen in Queenie’s language.)
I have spent way too much time trying to make a digital photo album of our trip to Tuscany for Principe for Kings Day. It isn’t very much, I know, but he is also getting ski glasses as a combination Christmas/birthday present along with a long ski weekend with his friends as soon as he can organize it. Not bad, right? He claims not to have even thought about what to get me, but I am sure he will return from the States with some sort of expensive face cream or perfume. Expensive in our terms, of course!
Tomorrow will be spent making cookie dough and Friday or Saturday we will decorate sugar cookies, something that Queenie will enjoy as it is almost like glitter, just sugar and edible. Hmmmm.
There was something else that I was going to talk about here, but it seems to have slipped my mind. I guess between the late hour and baby brain I am losing almost all of my thoughts about five minutes after they pass through my mind! I should probably go to bed. My feet are freezing and I am extremely tired, but I feel like all I have done today is make that digital album three times before I got it right and reading this forum that I must delete from my computer all together so that I stop wasting time there. Really, some of the topics are so trivial and are really unworthy of my time. Others are not so much, but is there a good reason for me to visit it five times or more in a day? I think not. I need some discipline. In that and in eating scones. Tomorrow is another day and I better place half of what is left in the freezer before I end up eating only scones tomorrow and nothing else. Yes, I am still a bit obsessed with my weight gain, even though I claimed I wouldn’t be. I haven’t weighed myself, couldn’t really even if I wanted to as our scale doesn’t seem to work. I do walk a bit, but then there are days like today in which my longest walk is from the washing machine to my bedroom and then to the living room before I’m back in the kitchen getting another snack or cup of tea. I have been a bit better with snacking this week, but not as good as I would like.
But anyway, it really is time for bed. Queenie has been getting into my bed half-way through the night (my fault as I am the one who puts her there) where she grinds her teeth and makes sure I don’t try to cover her up. It is so cold out and the house, although the heat is one, is not able to get above 18 degrees Celsius (64 degrees Fahrenheit) but at night is gets into the low 50s. Outside it is freezing. But that doesn’t deter Queenie from her mission to remain absolutely uncovered in all temperatures. Stubborn little girl. When I change her diaper in the morning her feet and legs are cook despite wearing a onesie, tights and heavy cotton pjs with feet.
Oh, here comes the good part of the movie. The end. So romantice. Would it surprise you to learn that I am a romantic? I try not to let anyone know. Half the time my husband questions if I really am. I am. But more in my fantasy world than in the real world. It comes out more in my writing that in my speech. Hmmm. I’m going to have good dreams tonight…..with Principe’s face as Darcy’s, of course!
Cranberry Oat Scones from Joy of Baking
1 3/4 cup all Purpose flour
1/3 cup (65 grams) granulated white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup (113 grams) (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold and cut into small pieces
3/4 cup (60 grams) old-fashioned rolled oats
1/3 cup (40 grams) dried cranberries or cherries I added dehydrated strawberries and it’s so yummy!
Zest of one lemon or orange
2/3 cup (160 ml) buttermilk
Egg Wash:
1 large egg
1 tablespoon milk or cream
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. In a large mixing bowl place the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder and whisk to combine. Add the butter and using two knives or a pastry blender cut in the butter until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add the rolled oats, dried cranberries and zest. Mix until combined. Stir in the buttermilk (adding more buttermilk if necessary) and mix just until the dough comes together.
Transfer to a lightly floured surface and knead the dough four or five times and then pat, or roll, the dough into a circle that is 7 inches (18 cm) round and about 11/2 inches (3.75 cm) thick. Cut this circle into 8 triangular sections. Place the scones on the prepared baking sheet. Make an egg wash of one beaten egg mixed with 1 tablespoon milk or cream and brush the tops of the scones with this mixture.
Bake for about 15 – 18 minutes or until lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and then turn your broiler on high. Sift confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar heavily over the tops of the scones and place them under the broiler. Broil for just a few seconds, turning the pan as necessary, until the sugar has melted and turns golden brown. Make sure to watch the scones carefully as the sugar will burn very quickly. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Makes 8 scones.
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