Letters From Silence

XIX

Dear "Parents",

I'm sorry to say this, or maybe I'm not, but you both have never felt like parents to me. Maybe it was because of the fact that you, dad, left when I was three and then tried to come back when I was fourteen like nothing ever happened. Like you hadn't just missed ten years of my life. You may live closer to me now, but you are still never there. As a father you never held me. As a father you never cared. As a father you didn't teach me about life. As a father you didn't put me to bed, and you never gave me a hug. However, for some reason I can't fathom you are my father, and for the same reason I cant fathom how you earned the title when being a father was one thing that you never were and never seemed to want to be. You are a faint memory in the back of my brain that I often have to strive to remember.

Or maybe it's the fact that you, mom, just never seemed to care. I can't have anything wrong with me because I'm met with "If you only knew..." and "you think you got it bad". I've sincerely needed your help in my life with illness, emotion, and my mental state. But all I can do is sit and listen to how rough you've had it. It's easier for me to hide my negative thoughts and feelings than deal with the huge outburst it will cause with you. I keep it all in. I have learned through the years that silence is the best answer. Why speak when you hear nothing? Why speak when I'm wrong? Why speak when you scream at me anyway? Why do anything at all? You taught me from a young age to bottle my emotions. When I cried you'd call my tears crocodile tears. To this day I struggle with expressing my emotions in anyway other than extreme. I falter between none at all and excessive because you were my role model.

My feelings are denied, discounted, ignored, devalued and even made fun of in your presence. I am constantly trying to win affection but nothing I do is ever good enough. I've pulled off elaborate moments but you were always content to focus on one thing that upset you outside of my control. In the end it never matter how hard I worked- nothing was ever good enough. You both know nothing. You've forever marred me, and though I've taken countless actions to undo the negativity you engrained in me I will forever have to battle it. I have an emptiness where you both should have been. One I thankfully didn't fill with drugs and alcohol, but one that refused to fill my whole life. It's a void. It's an essential part of me that I'm missing and as an adult have been trying to piece it together through the positive people in my life.

Sincerely,
Noelle