To her

You said you didn't love me. You said it took you two years to feel anything for me. I survived, so I know you must have tried. But in my earliest memory you are nowhere to be found.

I am alone in that memory, standing in my crib, bawling. I am alone in my little kid pajamas. My crib is bare. I am standing in my crib, and no one comes to comfort me.

You never came.

You were depressed, I get it. I've been depressed too. I can't imagine what it's like to care for a child when taking a breath seems like work, when facing a new day is the worst feeling of all. But I'm tired of making excuses for you.

I've thought about how you were neglected as a child, I've tried to have compassion for you. I've rehearsed over and over the strange things you told me about your childhood.

And now I'm ready to say enough. Now I'm ready to see that even though your austere upbringing left you aching for love, you still didn't give love to me.  You fed me and clothed me, and for that I'm grateful, but you didn't nurture my heart. You neglected it.

For once in my life I am not going to make excuses for you. I deserved love; even as a baby, I deserved it, and you didn't give it to me. I don't care that you tried but couldn't. The fact of the matter is, you failed.

You failed at helping me make sense of my world, of my emotions, of my femininity. You failed because, I think, you couldn't make sense of anything yourself.

When I told you I wanted to commit suicide as a 16-year-old, you told me how you almost attempted to hang yourself as a 27-year-old. You made my depression about you, not me.

When I was 13 and we looked in the mirror together, you told me that you and I, "we have faces that need makeup, that just look better with makeup." So you taught me I was ugly.

When I was 10 and you looked at my fingers and saw hair on them, you told me you used to burn the hair on your fingers. Instead of validating my appearance, you taught me I needed to be ashamed of it.

When I was growing into bras, you told me you didn't know what to do about breasts when you got them, so you reached across the fence and touched your neighbor girl's breasts. You made me feel scared of becoming a woman.

When I finally got my period just before 6th grade, I hated it. I never wanted to be a woman like you. Being a woman meant feeling ugly, hairy, and altogether unlovable.

Being a woman meant feeling ashamed.

If I could start fresh, I would. If I could unlearn what you taught me, I would. If only it were that easy.

I reject who you taught me to be. I can say it, I can think it, but living it is so hard.

Still, I reject it.

I know now that I am a human being, worthy of love, whose individuality is to be prized. I choose to be separate from you.

I feebly choose to be different from you, knowing that we are inextricably linked, but certain I must think of you as crazy or not-right-in-the-head or weird from this point forward.

You are not all bad. I know you have good intentions, and, for the most part, that you tried to be a good mother. So I still talk to you and feel grateful for your thoughtful gifts to me.

But I reject your worldview. I choose a different one. I choose a different me than the one you said I should be.