27 January 2015

 

I want you to know…I still love you and I always will. I think about you all the time. I think about my dad and my sisters and your dogs, grandma, and dad’s parents. Hell, I even think about Barstow and the life I left behind. I miss you. I miss them. I miss the life I could have had if I had chosen the life you chose for me—but I didn’t. I chose the man I love. I chose to marry based on my choices and feelings. I chose not to blindly follow in your footsteps like my older sister before me and my younger sister after me. We are estranged and it hurts.

The first time we quit talking a little over a year passed before you reached out. Our reconciliation was short lived though. We are now on the precipice of another year. I don’t know how to fix this. I don’t know if I can. Worse yet, I don’t know if you want me to. There are so many things, so many actions, so many words, and thoughts, and posts. So many ideas and thoughts, so many issues left unspoken. I don’t understand.

I don’t understand how we got here. To this place. To this stalemate. To not talking. To not being friends, much less family. I miss you so much and yet….I cannot contact you. I feel the guilt. I feel the shame. I feel the hurt. I feel so many things. I have contemplated going to a counselor or psychologist. I have spent nights searching the internet trying to understand, but I don’t. Where did my mom go? Where did my best friend go? Why is Cody such a big factor in our relationship? Our relationship? Am I not good enough? Do you need a connection with him to validate us? Again, I don’t understand.

Some days it hurts so badly, I can’t breathe. I can’t watch TV or movies. I can’t endure scenes of family togetherness and happiness. Scenes of intense emotion or scenes of loss. I just plain can’t endure.

I got another tattoo. Did you even know that? It’s something I wrote….with you and my sisters in mind. Something I decided upon when I found out that Tannessa would be naming her first child Susan…and essentially stealing the last right I had to the family name, to the family. I wish you knew how much this hurt me to read….on facebook, no less. I wish you knew how much that rocked and changed my world. I want to blame her, but I can’t and I don’t….God, I am only 28. Kids can still be in my future and most likely are. I am sorry that my kids are not in your future though.

Regardless, I still feel like waiting was the best mistake I ever made. I wonder if you will ever know or meet my children. I wonder if they will ever know or meet you. Sometimes the questions consume me and the pain is unbearable. Sometimes, I wish we were normal. Sometimes, I wish I just didn’t feel. I hope that my children will understand. I hope they will empathize with the choices that I have made. I hope that Cody’s parents and siblings, aunts and uncles will be enough. I hope that they will not grow up and decide to cut me out of their lives as well. I hope that this isn’t a pattern. I hope that….we can get back to a place of trust. A place where we can visit and talk. A place where I am not left with this constant feeling of grief of loss. I hope that one day, I get to have a family again. A mother and if not a father, an older sister, and a younger one. I hope for so much, but at the end of day, these are all just dreams and I left hoping and wondering, missing, and loving. Goodbye…..again.