We’ve spent so long kicking the shit out of each other with our words, that there is nothing really left to say. But simultaneously there is so much, so I will try my best to articulate how I feel, as I fear if I keep pushing this down, it will continue to effect all of my future relationships.
Over the last few years we’ve given up on each other, it doesn’t feel good, but it doesn’t hurt anymore either, it doesn’t feel like anything at all- tastes like air. Tortoises in our tortoise shells, safe.
I still think about you every day. I don’t know if I deserve to hate myself as much as I do, but you make me feel like I’ve failed in life because I do not fit the mould of what you deem to be a ‘good daughter’. Subconsciously, I have believed all the cruel things you’ve said to me over the years, your words have stuck to me like darts and I have allowed myself to be poisoned by the negativity to the point where I cannot find a way to learn to accept myself.
Let me start by saying I am not writing this letter to hurt you, I am not trying to blame you and I am so sincerely sorry for not being what you wanted. I am so sorry for disappointing you, you are ashamed of me- I know that. But I am a woman now and I can not let my guilt rule my life anymore.
I was a greedy child, I was overweight- but I was no where near as disgusting as you made me feel. I remember when we went to Tasmania in 1999, you told me you had asked Annette for her medical opinion on my weight and she had agreed that I was fat- why would you say that to a little girl? I had never asked for a medical opinion on my weight, I was eight years old.
Later in that trip you made me stand on Auntie Annie’s scales in front of you after we’d had lunch, I weighed 32kgs and you told me that I was far too large. I remember 4 years later when I was at the worst of my anorexia, I weighed just 29kgs. I remember looking at that red 29 and wishing we could go back to Auntie Annie’s bathroom together so you could see me on the scales now. No one in their right mind could say that I was ‘too large’ then.
I’ve seen flashes of your love from time to time mum. I remember when all that shit with Franky went down you stuck up for me, you fought for me and it broke my heart because I had been so sure up until that point that you hated me. Months later we were arguing and you said I had to leave PC because no one liked me, you were no longer on my team.
It is so hard for me to put on the gloves, I can feel the knockout before they are even laced up. Then I somehow stop being scared and accept my fate as the one who gets broken, then more broken- because someone has to do it. Then somehow when I least expect it, I land a left to the jaw and the ref is counting to ten, and I can’t see or hear anything. I can feel my heart pounding in my chest, that’s it, that’s always it. It’s not over and I am furious when anything like hope rises to the surface. Yet is keeps rising and I think- maybe this time is different? Maybe you can only lose so many times? But I have thought I had the victory sealed so many times before, only to have it all taken away- the sting is ten times worse, the crater is ten times deeper. There have been so many times when I could taste being happy, being really happy.
I failed you, but I failed me too. Sometimes I am so weak and I’m so sorry for that.
My heart is ugly and bruised, but I still have hope that I will one day be loved by someone.
