Wuthering? Heights?

Not a Love Story

No, I haven’t seen the movie — any of the versions. I read Wuthering Heights when I was 12 or 13, expecting some sort of love story, so I had no idea what to do when it was a book about awful people doing really awful things. Not many other kids were reading it at Deer Creek Junior High, so I kind of tucked the troubling story away into my adolescent mind and went on with things.

Personal photo: Bodmin Moor, Cornwall

But, I guess I’m not here to talk about how I understand the book now or Margot Robbie as Cathy (or Catherine?) in an R-rated fever dream.

If you could step inside my ADHD mind, you’d find a tiny, wuthering swirl of Catherine and Heathcliff, the Epstein Files, ICE, drought, Ukraine, and Trump’s face — along with my grocery list, that moulding container of soup in the fridge, and how I need to find someone to help me carry a dresser downstairs.

Somehow all of this adds up to me thinking about my own experience with partner abuse. If that was a big leap, I get it. Not everyone looks in the fridge and gets riled up about the treatment of women throughout all of time. My mind takes pretty big steps.

I hate watching this disappointing slide in public discourse that encourages us all to laugh off sexual abuse, to call things “love” that clearly aren’t, to excuse men who are so far out-of-line, unrepentant, and repulsive that I cannot control my anxiety when I think of them. I want it to stop.

I want it to stop.

So here’s a list.

In case you’re looking for something different to say. This is a list of things that I would have loved to hear as I was trying to disentangle from an abusive situation. (And, honestly, I would still be happy to hear any of this, over and over. Reassuring a victim of abuse is always welcome — no matter how much time has passed.)

1. I see how much you have suffered. I see it, and it breaks my heart.

2. I see how afraid you are. I see that you are afraid all the time. I see that you cannot sit at the kitchen table, fill in spreadsheets at work, or get into your car without being afraid. No one should have to be so afraid.

3. I’m not sure I know what it’s like to be that afraid, but I do know that I want you to feel safe with me.

4. I will do whatever I can to help you feel safe. Maybe sometime you’ll feel safe enough to tell me what that is.

5. When you say you don’t feel lovable, I know you’re not fishing for attention. That man tortured you so thoroughly that you had no choice but to believe you were not lovable. It isn’t the truth. I will tell you how lovable you are as many times as you need to hear it.

6. You did not do anything to deserve being treated that way.

This list is me begging for a gentler world — for me, for my children, for you, for the people you love.

So, dear, Heathcliff and Catherine, Epstein and Trump, Putin and Zuckerberg leave your version of love to be eviscerated on that turbulent moor.

We don’t want no part of this crazy love.