Today I will walk away and forget the pain you burdened me with for so many years. For years you asked me what was wrong, and for so many years I didn’t know either. But, now I realize I was always striving for that impossibly high bar you set, and just when my fingers reached it you would raise it ever higher.

What was wrong with me, was that you never protected me, you never said “It’s okay I love you just as you are”, and when I tell you this is the reason, this is what is wrong, you say I never let you. Well my job was not to let you my job was to be a child. If children had their way parents would never put out any stops.

When you felt the job wasn’t worth your time anymore, you decided to have the state pick up the slack. Do you have any Idea what it’s like to be a child who feels alone and forgotten. Locked in a room, far away from home a child who feels like the world is looking at her like some tainted soul. I was locked up with murders, and armed robbers, There we’re girls I new well who, started fire’s that accidentally killed people inside, and for what? Because you couldn’t deal with me? Because you washed your hands of actually being a parent to me?

I have spent years hating myself because you told me I wasn’t quite right. For years you tried to convince that I must have some “mental issue” that prevents me from being normal. But I know different now. I know that to be normal is to be different, to stand up for what I believe and to stand up for how I feel, different is normal it’s what makes the world the place it is.

For years you blamed me for not being the parent you should have been, and the only time you said you were sorry was in a flurry of drunken tears. You asked me to be honest and when I was, then you told me I was wrong. When I wanted to be and express myself, you looked at me through disapproving eyes. I spent my life looking for your approval. Well today I won’t do that anymore.

You asked me to trust you, but never gave me a reason to. You asked me to be there for you and tend to your feelings, well I’m your child that’s not my job. You say you love me, but your actions say you only love me if…. I may have been a difficult teen, but I was not as difficult as some have been. I didn’t do drugs, I didn’t drink, I wasn’t a horrible person. Just a young person trying to deal with her feelings.

Today I refuse to allow you to have that control over me. I will no longer hope for you to see me for the person I am. I will love myself, I have so much to give. I will not parent my child without the same guilt tactics that you used on me for so many years. I will instead encourage my child to identify his feelings and be okay with them. I will encourage him to stand up for what he feels is right, and I will tell him he doesn’t have to work to please me, because honestly I’m pleased with all my children being just who they are. I don’t expect them to be anything other than who they are.

Today I am strong, and I will live my life in the manner in which I choose, today I will not compromise who I am to bend to your or anybody else’s will. I may have walked the road alone for quite a while, but I know now that I am worthy of love, that the worth of my life is not the value which you put on it.