𝐀𝐍 𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍 𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐎 𝐌𝐘 𝐃𝐑𝐔𝐆 𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐈𝐂𝐓 𝐌𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑

Hey Mom it's me, I've been spending a lot of time reminiscing and I was wondering if you remember that award ceremony in the 5th grade when I won the first place medal for my report on drugs and how they effect people? Remember when they called me up to the stage and I cried because I was so happy, so surprised, and so proud of myself for excelling despite "unfortunate circumstances"... the year was 2002 and you weren't actually there to congratulate me because you were in jail at the time. You were then, and forever will be my "unfortunate circumstances" The year is 2018 and I still haven't forgiven you for the monster you are.

Today is Tuesday April 3rd, and I drove my daughter Alora to school today. She's in kindergarten. There isn't really anything special about that though because it's something that I do every day. Do you remember the one and only time you ever brought me to school? I was in pre-k, and you walked me to the bus stop because I didn't want to leave your side... it was the first time I had seen you in over a year. You probably don't recall the looks on all of the kids faces when they saw your disheveled clothes, too-big messy hair, and the 7 teeth in your mouth... but I do. Those looks stayed with me for a long time in life, and when I would get sad because you weren't there I would remember their faces and tell myself it was better this way because I didn't want to be laughed at. Right??

West Orange, New Jersey. The corner of Ridge and Watson, 10 year old me sat perched in the open window, watching all the passers-by. Half hoping, and half dreading one of them possibly being you. I knew you lived right around the corner, and you told me once that you could always sense when I was visiting. Turns out you were right, because there you were on the doorstep. You greeted me with such affection. Squeezing me so tight, kissing me and cupping my pre-pubescent face in your calloused hands, all the while telling me how much you loved me and missed me. I think that may have been one of the first times I ever fully experienced what my anxiety felt like because in those moments I wanted nothing more than to peel my own skin off. You looked exactly the same as the last time that I saw you, only worse. I guess that's "Sunday best" when you live in a garage, or a shed. Whatever it was that you and your crackhead boyfriend were squatting in at the time.

"It should have been you" something you said to me not once, but twice in my life. The first time I was 13, and I had written you a strongly worded e-mail telling you how I felt about all of the things you had chosen in your life instead of me. How I hoped that the heroin high felt as good as watching your only living child grow up, how much it hurt that even though I was the only one you had left you still never picked me. You made it really simple for me to understand when you finally wrote me back though, "If you lived to be 100, you could never measure up to your brother. The wrong kid died that day" Numbers played in my head like a crazed mathematician... Drew was only 6 when he died and I was more than double that. It made no sense how you could compare the two of us in such a way, but I guess that's because you got to know him his whole life and you didn't know me at all...

Just a few weeks ago I was riding in the car with Alora when she asked me "Mommy, why didn't your mom love you? who taught you how to walk, talk, and be a person if your mom just left you out in the cold at only 2 years old?" The pieces of my heart that were left broke into a million tiny shards, because now you not only caused a lifetime of hurt for me, but now MY BABY was hurting for me too. When she asks me questions about you, I answer the best way that I can, but she's only 6 years old and she doesn't know what it's like to have a mother who doesn't choose her. Speaking from the experiences that you gave me, I never want her to learn, so I told her "baby sometimes people don't know how to take care of anyone other than themselves, and barely even that. Mommy will explain it in more detail when you're old enough to process hurt without having to feel it"

When I was 23 years old and you came to Florida to be close to us so you that you could "start over" I thought that things would be different. Instead you had cabinets full of prescription drugs, a taste for my boyfriend, and an attitude so nasty it was simply unfathomable. Every time you opened your mouth to speak it made me sick to my stomach, I couldn't get past any of my feelings toward you especially when nothing had ever changed. So you fought with me, you screamed in my face- spit flying- about how all of what had happened to me was MY OWN FAULT. You insisted that "they" stole me from you, but I don't think it's stealing since you stuck me on the curb like an old recliner. What I do know is that given the opportunity to be my mother, you turned it down every time. How was I ever to learn to love myself when the one who was meant to love me unconditionally never felt the need for me, or simply couldn't stand to bother?

Did you know that genetics make up about 60% of someones risk for developing an addiction problem? I wake up every god damn day proud of myself for never succumbing to statistics. I no longer dream of disappointment with black hair and a scarred up face, I find hope in a woman who looks a lot like me. Once I was a little girl not too long ago, wondering how the world would ever find a place for me to fit, most days I fantasized suicide as an alternative to ending up just like you, but through much struggle, hardship, and overcoming instinct... I am strong in spite of you.

Hey Mom it's me again, I caught glimpse of myself in a mirror this afternoon and for a minute I thought I was your spitting image, until I noticed my self respect in the reflection and realized we look nothing alike.