Mom

Posted by Anonymous.

Dear Mom,

This is a letter that I should’ve written several years ago. I want to start off with saying that I love you even though you accuse me several times of the opposite. I am twenty-three years old, and I know you still see me as your little girl. Mom, I’m not a little girl anymore. I am almost done with graduate school. I have a lot of things left in life that I would like to experience in this world. I can’t deal with you trying to control every aspect of my life anymore. Prisoners have more leeway than I do.

I understand that you love me and worry about me, but you don’t act like this with the boys. You don’t make them tell you when they leave or when they arrive at their homes. You never have. I understand that you think things are different because I’m a girl. But, I am not a prisoner. I can’t let you control my feelings. Even though you think you don’t.

I am sooo sick of you constantly putting him down. He’s a good guy, a really good guy. Just because he’s black, not catholic, and doesn’t have an 8-5 job doesn’t make him worthless. He treats me well regardless of whether you want to believe that or not. He may not be what you have always wished for, but he works hard and loves me unconditionally. I don’t know what God has in store for our relationship; I just know that he brought him into my life for a reason. Maybe that reason was that our (yours and my) relationship can change into something different.

I have let you get away with a lot of things that I probably shouldn’t have. I can’t live the life you want for me. I need to live MY life. I understand you want the best for me, but like I’ve said on several occasions, you don’t get to decide. I am my own person. You raised me to be independent and to stand up for myself. When I stand up to you, you accuse me of raising your blood pressure and saying that I will give you a heart attack. You have absolutely no idea how much it hurts me for you to tell me things like that.

I know you are a good mom but you need to realize that I don’t do everything the exact way you do. I don’t think like you, and I view the world completely different. All you see are obstacles, and all I see are opportunities. I guess that is because we are almost 40 years apart. I refuse to argue with you every single day about the man in my life. I could understand you saying I deserve better if he treated me poorly, but he doesn’t. You know what it’s like to be treated poorly… I don’t. You think he controls me, but he doesn’t. He supports me. He is the one there every time you go off on one of your rampages about how much you dislike him and my lack of faith and blah blah blah. You’ve always known that I am not lacking in faith. I’m with you at church every Sunday on my own accord. I know I don’t have to prove my faith to you; it’s just irritating constantly being questioned.

I know I can’t control what you do, but I can control me. I do appreciate everything you’ve done for me; however, I can’t continue to have this relationship with you. I’ve told you on several occasions I wish we could have a mature mother-daughter relationship, but you refuse. You get jealous of the conversations I have with my friends because I don’t talk to you about certain things. The reason I don’t talk to you is because I can’t be open with you. You automatically judge me and disagree with anything you wouldn’t do or didn’t do. I AM NOT YOU.

I’ve prayed and prayed and prayed. I don’t know what to do about our relationship. The only thing I can think of is that I just need to stop giving in to you. I’m not sure if it’s best to just rip it off like a band-aid or not. I know you’ll go to my brothers and say how bad I am treating you and that it’s HIS fault. It’s not. Like I said at the beginning of this letter, I probably should’ve written this 5 years ago when I started college and the daily check-ins began when I wasn’t even in the same city. Now I’m back and have lived with you for a little bit, and I STILL had to check-in with you; otherwise, you blamed me for your lack of sleep. You aren’t the only one losing sleep. I just don’t tell you about it because I secretly think you’d enjoy that you get to me that much. I’m the one who has to go to work tomorrow, but I’m still up. I thought that writing this might help me to release some of my emotions. I’m debating on whether or not to send this to you.

I don’t know why you treat me so differently from the boys. I know you love them just as much, but you were able to let them go. I cry every day because I don’t know how to make this better. It’s killing me. I want to be able to have a GOOD relationship with you. Not one where you treat me like a five-year-old constantly. Mom, I’m going to make mistakes. I know that. But, it’s not like I’ve ever been in any serious trouble. The worst I did was talking in class when I was younger. For some reason, you think I am incapable of making decisions about my own life. You have to trust that God knows what he is doing in my life. I know eventually everything will work out, but I can’t wait to graduate and look for another job far away from here. I guess I think in my head that will help solve our problems even though secretly I know it won’t. I don’t know what to do. I love you, and I can’t take the arguments anymore.