10/11/2018
Mom -
There are so many things I want you to know that now you never will. I want you to know how angry I am that you never acknowledged your place in my hurt. I want you to know how disappointed I am in myself for feeling this way. Shouldn't I be stronger, or numb to all of this? All this pain, this loneliness, this shame? I blame myself when I should really blame you. I take out my anger on others, those I love, because I want YOU to know my pain. I want you to feel the pain I feel, know the same hurt, cry the same tears, bleed from the same wounds I cut into my arm.
But you're gone, now. All the years of undeserved torture are over. You will never again ignore me, put me second, disregard my needs. In a way, dying before you knew all these things is the ultimate abandonment. I guess the end looks a lot like the beginning... with your leaving me in a fragile state, unaware and unconcerned with my well-being.
I'm broken, Mom; you broke me. And I've tried to fill the cracks in every way possible. But nothing seems to help. They remain open and raw; they refuse to heal or scar over. I heard once to fill the cracks with gold, make something beautiful from the damage. But not me. Your memory won't let that happen. You keep peeling back the scab, probably unknowingly, but that doesn't make it heal any faster, now does it?
I'm sure you didn't mean any of this. I just don't think you could see beyond your narrow, limited horizon, where I sat, waiting for you. Maybe I'm still sitting there today, ignorantly hopeful that you'll magically appear, but knowing you never will.
Why do I need somewhere to place the blame? Why can't it exist and then just evaporate into the air? Why does it have to find a home with somebody? I don't want to be spiteful. I don't want to seek revenge. Why would I want you to hurt? That won't take away my pain.
Maybe all I'm looking for is an apology, acknowledgement that you failed me as a mother. Maybe you stayed so far away because you knew you couldn't provide, and you knew I was better off without you. Can I really, then, call you selfish? If you put my needs above your own? However misplaced the action, the intention was good.
I need to know if there is any truth to that. But I never will. Is it easier to believe that than to know what you did, or didn't do, was self-serving? How can I forgive you when you've caused nothing but harm? Well-intentioned or not, you caused this harm.
I don't know what I'm supposed to uncover in this letter I'm writing you. I don't even know how to feel after writing it. Angry, hopeless, sad, regretful, numb? I've felt all those feeling while writing this letter, but the one that remains is disappointment... in you and in myself. I know I need to let it go but I can't. One of us won't let it happen. I hope I grow to learn to take back control, yet I fear you'll always be pulling strings behind the scenes. And now that you're gone, you hold them more tightly than ever. I've never asked anything of you. But now I am. Please let me go, Mom. It's time to let go.
-- Alex