The Things I Never Told You

To my dearest mother,

Here is a short list of confession that I know you will never read. But I think it will be good for me to get them out of my head and onto paper form. Or at least in a manner of speaking. I'll admit this is not for the light hearted.

There are things in my life that I've kept in the dark from you. Things I wasn't sure how you'd respond too. It's never been anything horrible I've done. But things that happened to me. Or feelings I felt that I could never express.

I guess start with the worst trauma would be best. Though I'll keep from divulging into details. I remember when I was younger, sometime I think before you met your now ex-husband. We were both excited when we got new neighbors that had kids around my age. You were happy I'd be out of the house, and I was happy to have other kids to play with.

What I never told you about them though, is that they weren't exactly good neighbor friends. I remember the older girl used my face for her make up to bully me. While she had painted her own face to look pretty and beautiful, she had plaster and smeared it over my face while laughing. I was so young I didn't really understand. All I new was that her laughing felt painful and I didn't want to play with her anymore.

At the time, I felt so lucky that she had a younger brother. He was still older than me, but he seemed much nicer. Besides, what other boy do you know that actually wants to play house? Not many. I was so excited...until I wanted to show me things he'd seen his older brother do. Then it wasn't so fun. But I kept it all a secret, though I'm not sure why. But his threat to tell the adult some how made it seem like I was in this wrong. So I kept silent.

I think it helped me to stay silent because I was never sure of your moods. Especially when you didn't have you cigarettes. You could get so mean and moody, and it honestly terrified me.

The fear didn't go away, even as I grew with age. Instead I became a quiet and isolated person. I didn't want to be around you because I didn't know if you'd had your cigarette. Were you going to be loving and hold me? Or you were going to tell me leave you alone before threatening to smack me. Your mood swings were always just too tough to handle.

And then came the days of self pity. When you would feel like you weren't good enough, especially after you and your ex husband divorced. You sought after my emotional support while I had just freshly turned 18. I didn't want to mother my mother. I didn't want that kind of burden. But you kept bringing up the fact you'd raised me along for most of my ears. Guilted me into supporting you.

Then I got a job. Oh the joys of that. More guilt. More emotional support. You couldn't work, so you need me to tell you that it was ok. You were on disability, so you needed me to say that you were still strong. You didn't have much of an income, so you told me you'd spent so much on me growing up, so why could I buy you one pack of cigarettes? Why couldn't I buy you one pack of cigarettes multiple times a week.

Then you were a child again, with a new boyfriend. I was so happy for you to be happy, at first. But then the new mental trauma came. I'm still not sure what possessed you into think intimate time with you boyfriend while I was home was such a good idea. Especially when I had been working 8-10 hours a week. You could have had intimacy at any point in time while I wasn't home. But no, you chose every night, while I was home, trying to sleep. Every night in a small trailer. Every night in a small trailer that had thin walls. And lets not forget the disgust of the tent night. The fact you need me to comfort you after me expressing my disgust of you and your boyfriend having intimacy in the tent we were all sleeping in.

And yet you still need me to comfort you. And when I needed any semblance of comfort or when I needed to get things off m mind, I didn't know how good I had things. My life was so much better than others. "What do you have to complain about?" you told me. So I kept quiet. Yet you still wonder why I'm so quiet.

Dear mom, here's my biggest secret. You're not a great mom.