Family

Last month, my mother emailed me after three years of no contact. It was my parents’ idea. Growing up, they provided for me, but we were never close. I used to watch other families, my friends’ parents, and wonder why I didn’t have what everyone seemed to have. One time, my mother discovered drawings I’d made when I was a small kid, self-portraits of myself behind bars, which I don’t even remember drawing. She cried, but nothing ever changed between my parents and I.

The last thing she told me before we became estranged was that I owed her and my father $500,000 for the cost of raising me, even though I didn’t ask to be born. I hate her for that, and for going no contact. I hate her now for not letting me forget them. Every email I receive from her makes me want to throw my laptop into the wall.

People say whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but I don’t believe that. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you cruel. It teaches you how fucked people can be, and it isolates you from people who haven’t felt that on a similar level. It didn’t make me a better person—maybe a more understanding one, but not better.

The worst part is admitting to others that it wasn’t all bad, and they narrow in on that inkling of positivity and invalidate the rest of your experience. But when I talk to someone who really understands, it feels like releasing a breath of air I didn’t know I was holding. It reminds me that it’s all a part of being human.