The Four Eleven

Dear Mom,

This letter comes from your daughter. The young woman who lives on her own in Manhattan, barely surviving physically, financially and emotionally. Your daughter who, for the last 15 years, has raised your son, my brother. The daughter who has been the matriarch of our immediate family. The daughter who doesn’t know what it means to be a daughter, because she doesn’t know what it means to have a mother.

Nice to meet you.

Dear Mom. When I was 15 years old, I was everything but confident. I went through the motions of being an adolescent individual, having surgeries and worrying about things that teenagers shouldn’t be worrying about. I was not sneaking out and making out. I did not fit in. And when I had crushes on boys, you weren’t in that world with me. You prevented me from socializing with my peers and assimilating to the already stifling setting you pushed me into.

I did not fit in.

Dear mom. When I couldn’t do anything right, I asked you why. I approached you in a way that in hindsight, was ahead of my years, and in hindsight, changed my approach to things to this day. I asked you why you were angry all the time. Why you didn’t want to be around. You said you were busy at work. I knew better.

Dear mom. Being a sick person was hard. Missing months of school at a time and walking different and acting different did not make me special. Life was not easy for me. You did not make life easier for me. You did not protect me. You did not provide me with emotional comfort that I needed to overcome that successfully. I survived that in theory. I’m still “surviving” that.

In theory.

Dear mom. You had two great kids at home when you spent days and nights away from us. You had kids who spent hours dancing around the kitchen making dinners together. You had a daughter who had to fight for your attention while you chose talking on the phone over helping her pick out her prom dress. You had a daughter who had to get her dress hemmed alone, who had to get her nails done alone, who had to learn how to put makeup on from her aunt. A daughter who you couldn’t take to college orientation because of “work,” and a daughter who watched you leave for the beach when dad took me instead. You had a daughter who overheard you say that I couldn’t go away to college because of my physical disability and that since I couldn’t do laundry, I’d never survive out of your house.

Look at me, mom, doing laundry and shit.

Dear mom. I stayed in other people’s homes to feel loved. I stayed in other people’s lives because I was wanted there. I was not raised by you, mom. I was raised by mothers who knew how to be mothers. I was raised by women who allowed me to be a daughter. It was because of these important role models that I made it, mom. It was because of them that I was able to quiet your voice, mom. The voice that told me I couldn’t do it.

Guess what else I did, mom? I had my first kiss when I was 18 years old in the backseat of a car with some dirtbag kid. Don’t worry, you knew him, and you wouldn’t have approved. I also overheard you when you told a family friend that you wished I would have more “romantic” relationships with one of the many guy friends I had around all the time. I struggled for years after that, trying to make boys like me mom. But no boys did, mom. And you know why? Because I didn’t like me, mom. I have you to thank for that. So if I ever say that you never taught me anything, mom…

Call me a liar.

Dear mom. I have spent the last 15 years as a fighter. Not just the good kind, either. Not just the kind that gets you through sickness and your bills paid, mom. The kind that fucks up relationships. The kind that shuts down when feeling threatened. The kind that tells herself that love is a lie, mom. That anytime someone says they care, I know better mom. Don’t worry, I learned that from you too.

Dear mom. When I got married, you missed me trying on some really great dresses. You missed some very emotional dress fittings. You did a good job letting my aunt plan my bridal shower and letting my best friends plan my bachelorette party. And ruining the surprises that came with each. Thank you for reminding me, mom, that I was going to be living this life without you.

Dear mom. I hope it’s been worth it for you. Dear. Mom. Why did you have kids? We aren’t bad kids. To this day, I’ve never done any type of drug. I’ve never been arrested. I’ve had plenty of sex, but not always with people that loved me, mom. That’s because of you, too. Because I don’t trust people. Because I expect people to disappoint me. Because to this day, I have no idea to reject affection when it’s coming from the wrong source because I don’t know what it looks like from the right source.

Dear mom. I just want to be loved. I crave love. I know how to be on my own better than anyone. You taught me that also, because you didn’t want me, mom. You taught me how to shut people out because it’s easier than being fucked with, mom. You taught me how to become hard. And skeptical. And closed-off.

Dear mom. You’ve also taught me how to put others first. Sounds good, right? Everyone matters more than me, mom. Your students, your fishing buddies, your bed and any other person or reason you can scrounge up to avoid actually spending time with me or my brother. Because I know that I am the least important thing, mom, I know not to expect any more than that from a man. I know that if a guy wants to just have sex with me and not have me in any part of his life or bail on me at the last second for things that are more important to him, that that’s because I am not important enough.

Because of you, mom, I look for a man who needs me. After all, you don’t need me. I look for these broken, emotionally absent men that can’t offer me anything but heartache. I feel valued when I’m being used, mom. I will do a million wonderful things for a guy who cheats on me, who won’t go out with me in public, who won’t date me, who won’t work on himself to be with me, and all he has to do is express the smallest level of interest in me for me to stick around.

Really, mom. Thank you.

Dear mom. Today is the day. The day that I decide that you are wrong. That I do have value. That I am beautiful, and worth anyone dropping everything for just to be around me. The day I tell myself that if I ask you to go out to lunch or to get a manicure and you are “too busy”, that it doesn’t mean that I am not good enough. It doesn’t mean that I am a bad daughter or that I am less important. It means that you, mom, are an asshole. It means that you are very sick and that it is your loss, mom, not my loss. It is the day that I stop telling myself that because you don’t love me the way you should, that I won’t find anyone who will love me the way he should. It means that if I find a really attractive guy and he’s an asshole, I can remind myself that I am a really attractive girl and I’m not an asshole. I am one up, mom.

It means that if I’m feeling bad about a relationship I’m in, I can end it because I’m worth it. I can be loved, mom. I will not beg for it, or feel empty without it. I will feel confident knowing that I am all I need, because at 30 years old, I’ve proven that to be true, divorce and otherwise. I will not jump to conclusions based on how you’ve treated me. I will not expect people to let me down or leave me. I will be filling that hole you’ve left in me, mom. I will be a whole person, mom. I will be myself and no one else, mom, because I don’t want someone to love someone else, I want them to love me. Because I love me.

Dear Mom. Fuck you. I forgive you.

Oh, and Happy Mother’s Day.

Becky.