October 4, 2015

Sunday, October 04, 2015

No Place Else to Go

I don't miss being young.  I miss feeling invincible.  I miss thinking nothing could take me down.  I miss feeling free to live without worrying about what every move will mean.  That's how I felt when I first began travelling out on my own.  Now, I feel like I am back in that prison I grew up in.  Now, I feel like I have to brace myself for what is coming around each and every bend again.

I am trying to walk away from the most destructive relationship I have ever experienced.  When that title is owned by the relationship with a parent, walking away is heavier than anyone's imagination could bare.  It seems almost impossible to actually do it.  It is bogged down in guilt.  In all that I owe her.  In all that went wrong for her.  In all that made her life too hard to be able to love unconditionally.  In all the good times, which translates to guilt.  "Didn't you have fun when we took you to Edmonton?" "Your brother doesn't have any complaints" "It couldn't have been all bad".  No, it wasn't.  But when it has been bad, it has been awful. And it was and still is awful a lot.  It has never truly ended.  I am about to turn 38.  I have a 3 year old.  I am now the mother.  I can't let the cycle continue.  The dysfunction.  The madness.  It has been so much madness.  I can't go through one more fight.  I can't defend my right to one more feeling or decision.  I can't see my daughter feel less safe and secure every time the energy in our home turns to one of survival and badly disguised emotional trauma.  I can't take worrying that if I draw a line and stick to it that she will take her life.  I need to walk away.  And this is sure to be the hardest thing I have ever done.