Peregrine Took

I survived a lot of things without ever losing my innocence. I still managed to see the good in people and held that certain people were simply incapable of being anything other than pure perfection.

And then him.

Sitting across from my best friend I struggled to find my voice and fight back tears as I explained that I used to think she was one of those perfect people. I never saw a single flaw in her. Not a moment of weakness or a stitch of doubt in her confidence. I expressed gratitude in being able to appreciate her more fully now, but grief at having to. I liked things from my innocent eyes.

The conversation turned to that of Lord of the Rings and my love of the written character, Peregrine Took (no offense meant to Billy Boyd, but the book version is so brilliantly written it was not capable of being fully translated to screen). Tolkien, I believe, wrote little Pip so very intentionally. To me, he represents the true cost of war: a loss of innocence. The way Tolkien wrote him it is obvious he held him with a sort of reverence.

As I chatted with my best friend of the parallels I could draw between me and Pippin I could not hold back tears to realize my narcissistic ex was effectively the palantír of Orthanc. And my best friend, naturally, Meriadoc.

We change when we endure the abuse a narcissist is capable of. They take from us things we valued and they alter our world view in ways we may never be able to articulate. I am a different person now and I’m beginning to realize how much grief there is to process at losing who I used to be. I liked the old version of me rather well. I loved that me. And now I have to learn to love this me who is, effectively, a stranger.