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Mom,
if it even makes sense for me to call you that,
I hope your staggered breathing is the only sign of life you can recognize in yourself when you look in the mirror for the first time after getting home. Hope the eyes staring back at you flicker over your frame with scarcely an ounce of recognition, settling on your shaking hands. I know your idiosyncrasies too well- how could I ever forget- and I can picture you tapping your fingers against your leg over and over and over again until your heart rate slows enough for you to stare back up at yourself.
Damn it, there’s no reason for you to be proud of what you see, so I hope it scares you.
Whatever level of botched plastic surgery you’re currently on bears little resemblance to the face I remember looking up at. You had your flaws, but within all of that there was a whole human being, aware and trying to reckon with the world around her instead of burning it to the ground wherever possible. I’m not trying to romanticize the mother I knew. Just making peace with the fact that there was a before and an after in terms of your entire way of life, and there’s no going back to the before.
It keeps me up at night sometimes wondering exactly what effect your absence has had on me. Not knowing things is frustrating, isn’t it? If my memory serves me correctly, you always wanted to be in control of a situation, and you passed that along to me. (Steven, not so much- he got your penchant for running away as soon as things get difficult. I’m not sure which one is worse.) I can tell for sure that it hardened something deep within my spirit. Even just the mention of your name brings up a flurry of emotions I can’t quite name. I’ll try? Anger, confusion, frustration, humiliation, reluctant laughter, perhaps a smattering of “oh my god, I knew it would turn out this way, I just didn’t know how and when”. Your return has brought those all back up to the surface. I feel less like a person and more like a snow globe that hasn’t been shook in years, dizzy from the motion and cognizant that I only exist as temporary decoration in your eyes. Is that too much? You used to accuse me of being overdramatic, but that’s another skill I learned from you. People living in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
I could tell you the narrative of my life and I’m sure that you’d eat it up. Feel like by hearing me talk about it, you’ve been there all along and now that you’re up to date we can start off right back where we left. Unfortunately, my dear mother, that’s not how it worked. You raised a kid who gets mad when someone leaves her on read for two minutes… twelve years is a bit of a big deal.
Steven and I laugh about it sometimes, cry about it others, have long lingering conversations at times where if you read between the lines, your name comes up again and again. You wouldn’t know this, but he writes songs about you. They’re filled with far more empathy and hope than I can ever muster- I guess that’s because he knew you for longer, or maybe something in him just has a little bit more hope for humanity in general. I’ll listen to them and pretend not to have a clue what they’re about so that he can tell me. It’s a catharsis for him. We’ve learned to be each other’s therapists sometimes, although neither of us are up for the job.
Alexis, the way you damaged your children was textbook-perfect. For the sake of your ego, I hope one day someone does a study on how messed up we are as a family and they include your name- maybe the royalties you get off of that will let you get fake nails that don’t look quite so fake! I won’t even mention what you did to your dear ex-husband, because I’m not on good terms with Dad at the moment, but you can probably guess.
I don’t know what the point of this is. So many of the other letters I wrote to you and never sent had pleas for you to come back… think of us… keep a space in your heart with our names on it. This one’s going to be different. You’d be so proud- I’ve grown up enough now to think for myself and decide exactly who I do and don’t want in my life! Learned that one from you, too, although I hope my version of it causes less pain.
(On that note, you made me into a piece of scrap paper and then lit me on fire. I’m sure it wasn’t your intention, but I have hurt people recently, and it’s hard to take all the blame for that so excuse me if I deflect onto you for a moment. How on earth am I supposed to get into a functioning relationship when I’ve never seen one of those work out? When I feel like everything I do will only lead to subconsciously following in your footsteps? That’s no way to live your life, and I hate to admit it but I’m starting to see just how much those fears have stunted my relationships.)
Anyways, I hope you go to bed tonight and miss me more than you could possibly know. You’ll be at our doorstep again tomorrow, but that’s not the same as having me back- I’m determined to disconnect from you for real this time, and nothing you can do or say will stop me. We’re past that point.
Your daughter, (?)
Fallon