I need to give up the hope that I will ever be good enough for my mother.

My father stopped calling me a few months back. He now has Facebook. So he Facebook messages me. I think its more convenient. He also likes a Facebook post or picture to show hes proud of me. After graduating from college, living on my own and being self sufficient for six years this year counted yet another year where I would go without a birthday gift from my dad. He would schedule being with his kids the way I schedule playing with my cat.

My friends ask me if my parents live far away. It would be understandable if that was so, but both of my parents live less than a mile away. I don’t want to see my mother and my dad doesn’t put in the effort to see me.

Sometimes I live my life and not a thought would be put into the facts above. And then there are days like these were my mother once again says something manipulative and I am brought back. However, regardless of how peaceful and wise I have become there is not one day where I do not live my life with hatred. It is a very tiny piece of me, but it is there.

At the age of 24 I finally found myself. And not like a 20 year old finds themselves on a trip to the Brazilian rain forest. I finally feel like I belong. Not only in my body, but in this world. Looking back at the fact that I was never good enough for my mother it is not so strange to think how a child could feel so out of place in her own skin.Every once in a while I call one of my brothers to remind me that I am not crazy.

Imagine wanting to learn to ride a bike at the age of 4, falling down and because you cried your mother told you not to get on another bike again. Now imagine being six years old and as the little kids zoom by on their bikes, your mother asks you why you never learned to ride a bike and why it is that other kids can and you cant. Now imagine being six and not knowing why it is that you cannot do the things that other kids do when you look the same as they do.Imagine thinking that you were a defect. I finally learned to ride at the age of eleven with no help from my parents. At the age of ten my mom would remind me that I never learned to ride a bike, but when I asked her if I could buy one so that I can one day learn her excuse for not getting me one is that I didn’t know how to ride one.

Asking for my mothers love is like getting a job straight out of college. When going to college you spend time and money on your education. Passing classes and finishing credits while keeping your GPA up. You engulf yourself in your major. When graduating and getting into the workforce you are turned away, because you need experience. Getting a job straight out of college is a catch 22 and so was getting my mother to love me.

I speak in past tense, because I want very badly to believe that I do not care. I want to believe that I once did, but now I don’t. Yet, every time she stabs me with her words I somehow seem to go down.

I need to give up the hope that I will ever be good enough for my mother.