Mom

I still miss you. Not every day, just most of them. When I think of starting a journal, I realize that all the things I want to say are directed at you. Most of them start with "I'm sorry", and the rest end in question marks. I've never known what the hell I'm doing, and you always seemed so certain in your actions, even when you weren't. I need your certainty. I need you to tell me what the hell I'm doing with my life, where to go, if I should even go anywhere or if that's a disastrous pipe dream. You were right about the men in my life when I had no idea what was going on. You never questioned the love I had for G, even when I was young and dumb. In the awful aftermath of our breakup, you assured me that we'd find a new, better form for our relationship to take. You told me not to trust too strongly in S and to never bend to the will of someone who wants to control me for their sake rather than mine. You were right, and that warning echoed in my mind when he proposed. I ran, and I've since gotten continuous reminders of the wisdom of that choice. Without your advice, I don't know if I would've had the strength to walk away from someone who'd been my crutch. Someone who told me that the only chance I had at worth was through him. I saw all the signs of control, watched them escalate toward abuse, and honestly didn't look at them for what they were. It could've been too late. I could have been isolated to caring for him and the kids, feeling trapped. Your warning freed me to continue trying to love, trying to grow on my own. But what the fuck am I doing with that? Wrapping myself in other people's dreams, fears, hatred, anxiety... I don't even know what I want out of life, but I know I can't stagnate. I can't stay here for my own sake, but the immediacy is driven by my need to help him escape and hopefully find a place he can be something like happy. By my age, you were stuck to a crazy man you loved and had a kid on the way. What would you have done if you had the chance? I've stayed here largely out of a sense of responsibility to my family that I continue to neglect, like I neglected you. I don't know how to help them. I don't know if I can do it. Dad could barely exist when you were here and now, three years after your death, with kids all grown, he wants to die more than ever. He finds small glimmers of happiness in the interactions he has with me and my brothers, but they're brief and bittersweet. He often leaves abruptly to go home and drink himself blind again. I can't challenge that. I don't know how to tell a man who contributed to my wish to die that he needs to live. I can't form an honest argument for him existing, and I'm fucking furious that I can't hate him anymore. I'll genuinely miss him when he's gone.

I don't know anymore who to burden with my desire for meaning in life, and I still don't know how to live for myself. Every year feels like a different version of wrestling with sheets on a summer night when you can't get comfortable, flipping the pillow over and over to find the cool spot.

Even now that you're gone, my thoughts toward you are these demanding questions that you're not here to answer. I haven't even gotten to the "I'm sorry"s yet.

I'm her youngest. Her little girl. The one she held on to. The one she rescued.

It was so easy to talk to her. We were close, going shopping, seeing movies, Now... do we speak a different language?

My sense of humor veered off a bit, but my punnyness is still there.

My comfort... well, let's just say, It's easier to talk to others now... I guess I branched out. The seed has taken hold in new soil, and all I can do Is vaguely wave my blooming branches in her direction.

She loves me. She cares, she got facebook, I think just to keep tabs on me.

My "status" changed, not single anymore, he's my comfort now.

"If you find your relationship headed in that direction-" she's writing of pills, and I'm blushing, but she's trying to be cool with it.

Love you mom.

The biggest mistake I’ve made all year was going home, we did I think a visit would be a good idea? It was defiantly the free booze.

You’re worried about what it’ll do to the children? That’s a new one for you. I was once a child. Your child to be exact and you didn’t give a damn about that then.

Now you’re a decade older and have a new set of children and don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you push the rest of us aside when he has the time for you you the one who said that nothing would ever come between us that you would always pick us first.

You the one who turned your back on us for five years while we fought through colleges and high schools parentless

you the one who frightened off the one parent who really did care in the end,

You the one who fed us lies and made us hate for no real reason at all.

You the one who stumbled home late at night and I carried up to bed switching roles momentarily and never switching back.

Now he’s leaving and you’re worried about the other kids.

You’re worried about what it may do to them.

How quickly you forget the utter hell you’ve put the first four through the first four with olive colored skin and black hair and almond shaped eyes.

The four who don’t mesh well with your new blond blue eyed picture perfect family.

You know what we lived through listening to our father beg and pled and cry just to say good night to us while you wouldn’t let him.

We watched as he stumbled back to his car his only home not having any family in the states to sleep while you slept with another man a man who left you in the end.

We lived through years of lies that drove us apart these kids are getting out of a bad situation not going into one.

Maybe I am being childish.

Maybe I am being petty and I should let the past rest in peace.

Maybe you’re right and it wasn’t as bad as I’m remembering it and I did after all make it out of there stronger because of it.

Because I refuse to fall into your trap ever again.

Fuck you.

Fuck all of your stories and your twisted concerns.

Fuck this family and everything having to do with it.

And who fucking cares if I did just finish that bottle of vodka straight no chaser!

Do I remind you of someone?

Wait let me get you a fucking mirror!

Does it scare you how little of yourself there is in me.

That the small part that is you is the part that’s ripping me apart!