Dear Mom, I think about you everyday. In my mind you are two different people. One is this funny, charming, smart, talented, beautiful, young, generous, loving, amazing cook, comforting friend, woman who makes me feel most at home, nourishing, person I love most in the world. Person I love the most in the world. Person I loved the most in the world.
The other you are a vicious drunk, yellowed teeth, smoke smoke smoke, wasting life and money stoned, drunk driving, living in filth, ruining everything around you, filthy, smelly, watching television, financially abusing your mother, selling everything she owns to support your habits, your poor dogs, breed of which you foolishly picked that needs lots of grooming but you never do it because you are too drunk and stoned and you don't care. And you picked that breed in the first place because you are so detached from your limitations, your issues that nearly every choice you make is an irrational one. Your addiction to pot and alcohol has robbed you of the ability to care about or respect anyone. Do you hate yourself? Why has this happened? Don't you love me? Don't you love my baby? I thought you loved me. I thought you loved me so much.
I'll catch a glimpse of myself in a picture and I shudder because I look like you, the expression in my smile. The thing that I fear most in the world is that I will be just like you. I am so afraid that I will be like you. I am afraid that I will make my daughter feel like me because I might be just like you.
I am so sad that you chose to be drunk and high on both occasions when you met my one and only daughter. I am so sad that my daughter won't know the other you. The beautiful one. Was she just a person I made up in my mind? You were that person, weren't you? You are that person, somewhere. Right?
She won't know you at all because I can't see you anymore.
I can't talk to you on the phone anymore and pretend that I still love the real you because the drunk and stoned you is all there is.