Dear Mom,

 

He was there for you. He loved you, kept you in his arms each night.

Until you went to another.

He was sweet. He supported you. He swore to love you until he died.

Did you not mean it when you swore with him?

 

How dare you tear this family apart? You ruined what we had, our perfect little family.

How dare you spend your nights with another man?

How dare you rip me from my family, from my friends? How dare you blame my unhappiness on my father, someone who would never do the things you did?

 

What right did you have?

I never asked for this. I never asked to be born, for you to start a family. You decided with him.

 

Are you planning on starting a new family with this man?

The man whose wedding I was the maid of honor for?

I didn’t even want to attend, let alone walk down the aisle.

Let’s hope, for that family, that you don’t mess up this time.

 

“Sometimes, when two people love each other very much they need to be apart.”

Those were your words, were they not? When you told me my life as I knew it was over?

Did you love him, did you love my father?

 

I’m not sure you’re capable of love at all.

You couldn’t love me. Not as a fat girl.

All you could do is shove me on a scale and slap me for eating cheez-its.

How hard was it to tell me I was beautiful no matter what?

 

I was twelve. Twelve years old when I ate my feelings through your divorce.

You are the reason for my stress.

Why, at ten years old, was my brother sobbing on the stairs begging Dad not to send him to your house?

Why did you bother fighting for us in the first place? We have never gotten along.

 

I hate you for what you did. I’ve tried to make myself forgive you, again and again and again.

It never works. Each time I come close to having some kind of relationship with you, we fight.

But your feelings don’t matter, right? That’s how you guilt me into thinking I’m a terrible daughter?

 

You make it seem like it’s my fault. Everything, from my dog peeing on the ground to the leaves falling on the stairs.

It’s taken me a long time to realize that I can’t try to control what you think of me, what you say to me. That you learned from your mother, and her from her’s.

 

Is that why I’m petrified to think about having a child in the future?

That I’ll ruin an innocent child, because you ruined me?

But maybe, just maybe, I’ll know not to call my daughter fat in front of her family.

Maybe I’ll realize, when my daughter doesn’t want to send you a picture of her weight on Wednesdays, that I should not push her onto the scale myself.

 

This is where I stop. I stop trying to pretend I’m okay because it makes the days pass easier.

I will move out in just a few months, my brother in a few years.

After college, who knows when you’ll see me again?

 

So I write, and rewrite this letter time and time again to try and justify my leaving to you.

I think I’ve finally got an answer.

 

I don’t have to justify myself. This one, this event, is your fault, and your fault alone.

 

-Your daughter.