Dear Mom,

This will never reach you because you live in your own world and always have. I know how it would crush your self-image for me to tell you you didn't nurture me because you base so much of your identity on being a mom and thinking you were a great mom. You weren't. You had kids to meet your own needs for love and purpose, and you used us to that end.

Honestly, I'm still pissed off that I had no say in whether or not I got to come into existence. I would have chosen not to exist, but like most parents you just cavalierly went about making more people because that's what we're programmed to do. Well, I chose not to. I would never condemn another person to life by giving birth. That is too great a burden to thrust on someone else because I think I'd make a good mommy or "Gee, I like kids so much."

The crazy train of our psychotic family stops with me. I am not so arrogant as to think I can surmount the generational piles of sh it constantly pushing me into dysfunctional behavior and be the first in our line to be a "good enough" parent. I wish to god you hadn't been that arrogant either. I wish you weren't still that arrogant.

But I couldn't ever disabuse you of the notion that you had beat the family curse of dysfunction because, once again, you live in your own world and you see what you want to see. But if I really wrote what I wanted to in my card to you with no consideration for your fragile feelings and just letting my anger and hurt be honest, the card would read:

Dear Mom,

You failed.