Cutting Ties

It has been five years since we last talked.

No get-togethers, no phone calls, and barely a few texts exchanged–often without a response.

I shouldn't be surprised, you've never really showed much interest in my life–I remember being eleven years old and inviting you to a band concert at my school, but you couldn't go, because your daughter didn't have enough of a heads-up to get the day off of work. You were upset with me for waiting so long to invite you–as it an eleven year old child would understand how requesting time off at a workplace would work.

You called me on my fifteenth birthday and asked why you hadn't been invited to my party. You said that my silence spoke volumes.

You had never come to a single birthday party of mine. When I was little, you sent me cards with my name spelled incorrectly written in them. I would've double checked before sending it. Those moments are some of my earliest memories of you.

I invited you to my birthday party the following year, only to be told no. Then you called back and said you know what? Yes! We will come! The spite was practically oozing out of the phone.

It was a few days before the party that I got a text from your daughter, saying that it probably wouldn't be a good idea for you both to come. There's a lot of toxic history between you and my parents, after all.

My brother told you in no uncertain terms that, if you wanted a relationship with him, you could not speak unfairly of our parents. He hasn't spoken to you sense. I assume you took that as an ultimatum from me, as well.

There's a part of me that wants so badly to tell you all of this, everything I've had bottle up for my entire life. I probably won't ever say any of it, though. It's not worth the emotional labor. I just want some sort of closure. You probably wouldn't apologize, anyway. I have to live with that knowledge.

If this sounds familiar to you, I'm sorry. We don't deserve this. It's easy to say just cut them off, go no contact, but it is much harder in practice. It's normal to want closure, isn't it? Making peace with the idea that we may never get it is very, very difficult.

I hope you can find some sense of peace where you are. You deserve it.

–Abbie