Guest Post: A Letter to My Mother

"this is addressed to you." was conceived as a space to say everything you've ever wanted to say but haven't found the time, the words or the energy to convey. The space to say all those things you've deliberately or unconsciously edited or censored. It isn't just a space for me, but for all of you who've never quite managed to say it all. A safe space: no judgements, no recriminations, no anger: just everything finally laid bare.

If you'd like to post on "this is addressed to you." please e-mail addressingyou@gmail.com and please specify if you'd like to stay anonymous or link back to your blog!

The first ever guest post letter is by Alicia Anderson, and the blog couldn't have asked for a better first guest post. Her blog is here.

Alicia addresses her mother, after the jump!





Dear Mom,


Let me start by saying that I love you with all my heart but sometimes, I think it’s only because I’m required to love you because you are the woman that gave me life. I don’t know how to explain the near hatred I have for you and your life but I’ll try and hand it to you lightly.


I’ll start with the GIANT pink Elephant in the room. He cheated on you, 4 times. Yea, I’m talking about Tom. (I refuse to call him dad anymore; I’m reduced to referring to him as my step-dad, not only because he’s not my biological father but because of what he’s done) Why are you still with him? Why have you remarried him 4 times? I don’t think you can call anything love after he’s slept with more woman than Clinton. He’s rubbed his infidelity in your face and you’ve accepted it. In turn, you’ve changed my little brothers, at least 3 out of the 4, from men who could have possibly cared about women to men who cheat, lie, and have children with women that they never plan to have a long term relationship with because they’ve come to believe that every woman is like you. They think every woman will just turn a blind eye and never speak of it again. Every time something tragic happens it becomes all about him and he finds a woman that will comfort him because, for some reason, I don’t think he thinks you can do that. I’m surprised, after Grams passed away, he didn’t find someone else. To be honest, I’m just waiting for it. When it does happen again, like I know it will, I’m going to tell you exactly what I told you on the phone when I declined the invitation to your 4th wedding to this man, “I told you so!”


How about your insecurities with telling me who my real father is? Don’t you think he, and I, have a right to know about each other since you didn’t tell him before I was born? I know, a few years ago, you were planning a trip to Iowa to tell him about me but you chickened out. Then, you looked me in the eyes, when I asked about him, and told me you weren’t really sure what his name was. You’re a liar. I want to know if I got my strength of character from him, because I sure didn’t get it from you. What if I have more siblings, even though they’d technically be half siblings, just like the boys? Why are you afraid that I’m going to hurt Tom’s feelings? Don’t you think he got the hint when I changed my last name back to your maiden name and refused to be referred to as a Halladay anymore? Don’t you think me refusing to come to your last wedding ceremony gave him a clue that I don’t really care for him anymore?


Don’t tell me you don’t get it either. You have to realize how weak you are and how lazy you are. Yea, I said it. It took years for me to get over what Tom always said about you, and all of us kids, behind our backs, or so he thought. I finally realized that he’s right. You work 3 days a week, and at times, have 9 days off and yet you still have the dirtiest house I’ve ever seen. You spend your weekends planting flowers that you don’t even take care of instead of vacuuming the floor like you should. I’m not saying you have to be Hannah Homemaker but damn it, clean up once in a while. Right this second, there are ants crawling all over your kitchen counters because none of your children will clean up after themselves. They still expect you to do it, and you don’t. They’re all over the age of 17, TEACH THEM SOMETHING ABOUT CLEANLINESS DAMN YOU!!! Please, do me one more favor, before you put the dishes in the “dishwasher” (should be called dish sanitizer) run a soap soaked sponge over them. You know that night you made sloppy joes? Yea, they were still in the pan the next morning. It’s just sickening that you can’t even clean a dish. Oh, and leaving your meat on the counter overnight to thaw is NOT healthy. When you go to cook chicken and it’s nearly brown, doesn’t that send a signal to your brain that you probably shouldn’t make your children put that in their mouths? Tell me something, why haven’t you thrown that salt away that expired in 1998? Yea, shit expires. Just because you ignore the expiration date doesn’t mean that it magically goes away. Freezing things until past expiration doesn’t mean that they are still good, it only means that you’re too cheap (and spend your money on frivolous, idiotic ventures) to pick up fresh food.


Oh, and stop complaining about not having money to pay your bills. Giving your children an allowance for doing nothing is doing them no good. They’re not learning to earn for themselves. Plus, if you didn’t go to every Rodeo and stupid little town festival within a 70 mile radius, you might realize that paying bills comes quite easily. If you hadn’t just purchased 100 flower bulbs to put in the yard, you might have had enough money to pay the electric bill last month and you wouldn’t have 2 months stacked into one bill. I wish they would shut your power off, and then you might realize that you can’t manage money to save your life. Just because there was a quilt show doesn’t mean you have to attend. You didn’t buy anything AND you took the long way home, wasting more gas than necessary. Seriously, I mean, seriously. Why haven’t you gotten it?


If I have to hear you pander to Ali one more time, I’m going to scream. Yes, she stubbed her toe, but that doesn’t mean you have to pick her up and give her whatever she wants. Three year olds are NOT supposed to be drinking Mountain Dew. Calling in “Magic Medicine” and telling her it’s going to fix her owies is only going to make her an alcoholic. Do you know why she whines so much? I’d whine too if every time I did, I got exactly what I wanted. I wish you would take the hints, but you just brush it off and tell me “That’s what a Grandma is supposed to do, give her everything she wants.” No, when the son that is supposed to be taking care of her is in the next room playing video games, a Grandma is supposed to get her son off his lazy ass and tell him to take care of his daughter.


Stop being an enabler. I understand that what happened to Preston was traumatic but keeping him on 3 different narcotics, 3 times daily, plus the 6 to 7 other pills he takes alongside those, is only going to kill him faster. You wonder why he walks out of his room looking like he’s just been to the bar and racked up a bigger tab than Lindsay Lohan. Well, let’s see, every 3 days he puts on a pain patch, then takes 2 more pain pills plus 3 to 4 other pills on top of that. I think his liver/kidneys/entire body is screaming for help. Stephen does NOT have ADD, he’s got a lack of discipline. He won’t focus because you don’t make him. He’s in the 11th grade and doesn’t know how to write one quarter into a fraction. He can’t even spell the word Spanish. Sit him down, tell him to do his damn work, and don’t let him hang out with Bundy until it’s done. Neither of these children can be away from you for more than 8 hours without crying. Not figuratively crying, literally bawling their eyes out because they don’t have mommy. Is that what you want? Did you intend to have children so dependent on you that they can’t even function properly? Well, you’ve succeeded.


Where did it all go wrong? What happened between me and Andrew? I never got what I wanted. You never gave me an allowance like you give Stephen. I’m absolutely against drugs unless I’m in so much pain that I can’t see straight, for example, the last time I had a Kidney stone and you used to be too but it appears that’s all changed. Kids are supposed to grow up and move out and become less dependent on their parents but somehow, I think that would crush you and make you think of yourself as less of a person. None of this will ever get to you because you don’t want to hear it and no amount of talking to you is going to make you understand, I know, I’ve tried. So, I’m going to write this letter to you, a letter that you’re never going to see. However, it’s been quite liberating to get this out in the open.


I’m going to end this letter by telling you that I’m glad I didn’t turn out like you. You’re not my hero and I don’t look up to you. I don’t want to be anything like you and thank the Lord in Heaven that TJ came along or I might be stuck becoming you. He showed me the real world and what real people need to do to maintain a healthy mental state. I’m a better person because of him and I don’t know what I would do without him.


With my sincerest regret and hopes for your other children’s future,


Your Daughter
Alicia