Just Jul Lee

Letter To Mom

Mom,

I didn’t want to write this letter and hopefully you never see it, but I needed to tell you how much it hurts to be who I am. I can’t be Julie anymore; I can’t live with the failures and the guilt, the anger and the bitterness, the debt and the depression. It just isn’t working for me. I need to escape.

It would be so easy to fall away, Mom, to just walk away from all the responsibilities that haunt me, to fall into the well of self-pity, but I fight the pull. I am friendless, Mom, but you don’t realize it. The Crespin’s are the most loyal friends I have found in my life. It is sad when you think about it. I sleep better on a pull out sofa sleeper in their house than I do in my own bed. I have more fun spending time with them than I do on my happiest day anywhere else. I feel closer to God, I hear Him speaking and I actually long to do as He tells me when I am with them.

Deep inside, Mom, you must always know that I love you. I have never wished you ill, never wished you weren’t my mother. There are things I wish had never happened but I am glad that my Mom is still alive and with me. The thing is that we can end up hating each other if life continues this way.

I am all alone in a large house surrounded by family and always frowned upon. I can’t seem to please anyone and I am sick of trying. It has occurred to me, more than once, that I am not the most important member of this family. I don’t contribute and I seem to do more harm than good in my daily living. So, I need to discover my worth and value and I can’t do it here.

I also can’t leave. My weekend escapes to Albuquerque help me to feel stress-free and calm but there is always Monday. I am not telling you this to hurt you, I am telling you this to see if there is anyway you can understand what I feel.

You always complain about you, about how much debt you’re in and how depressed you feel daily. You make me feel guilty about everything I do and say, make me doubt myself, and make me wonder if I will ever be the person I want to be. It’s just the way you are, Mom, just like I’m the way I am.

I am rude, I do have an attitude and I am currently putting me first. The reason I am doing this is because I can’t deal with all the responsibility of worrying about others. The house is the bane of my existence.

I never should have moved back in with you and Joey. I should have stayed at Dad’s house but that just goes to show you that I can’t tell what the future will bring. We communicate and get along much better when I am not living with you. I hope you understand what I am saying.

This feeling of hate and anger, frustration and depression, is slowly destroying me. And it is destroying you too. That is why I don’t understand why you cling to the house that is more of a burden than a blessing. I know that God told you that you could keep the house but don’t you think God also wants you to live happily? He wants us to be blessed and we can’t be in the house.

I can’t escape, Mom. My credit is so bad right now that I can’t even get an apartment. I am so desperate to get out that I am living with the Crespin’s and paying them rent so that I can file bankruptcy. I’m 23, Mom. Bankruptcy shouldn’t even be an option for me. I should be enjoying life but I’m not.

It’s hurts that you don’t know me. You pay lip service to me, claiming that you know me, but you don’t. To think that I would drink when I’m not around you hurts me. You probably don’t even believe me when I say I’m a virgin. I could be lying to you. These are the feelings I get.

I know you try, Mom, and I know you love me. I love you too but I need to think about all that I suffer through in the house that you refuse to sell. You lie and tell me that everything will be fine yet we are living stressful and hateful lives together. We don’t even behave like a family.

So what? Am I rebelling? I guess I am. It’s just too much for me to feel guilty everyday and hide in my room every night. I can’t stand for us to be this way but there is no other way for us to be. It is time for us to let go of everything. It is time for us to live apart from each other before I say something I will regret.

Every time we argue, I bite my tongue and hold back all that I long to say. I think if you were to look at this fairly, you would see how much I’m hurting. Of course, you and Joey will join sides, as always, and insist that I am just spoiled and selfish.

So call me that and I will accept the fact that you don’t know me at all.

It matters not to me if you yell at me for this letter or if you cry or if you don’t feel anything at all. I just needed to let you know. I can’t forget all that has come before and there is a great wall between us that will always be there. I can’t help it.

Don’t be overly holy and say that I have to let go and move on. I am in a place where all I can do is dream of leaving you far behind and being on my own. The wall needs to have distance between us before I can start pulling out the bricks.

Mom, I have tried to move on but every time I pull a brick down another one is handed to me by you and the wall stays the same. It’s not just you, there’s a wall between me and Dad as well but it is a different wall. I can’t get close to either of you; I can’t hug either of you or tell either of you I love you even though I do love you both. I love you both so much that it hurts to feel this way. I can’t help the way I feel…I can’t help the walls that remain.

That is the Julie neither of you know and therefore I am called selfish and guilt is heaped upon me for no reason. I can’t feel guilty anymore. It hurts too much.

I don’t want you to tell me anything after you read this letter. I don’t want to talk about it; I don’t want you to try to open the doors that have been shut. I want you to know that there have been wonderful times as well, my life with you hasn’t been awful. It’s just that the baggage from our past is terribly heavy.

I know that you’re probably going to show this to Joey and he’ll come to me and yell at me and make me feel like crap, just like Albert did that night when I left. No one wants to know what’s inside me, what’s hurting me. They just want me to shut-up and blend into the life offered to me. I have never told you how I feel before.

If Joey doesn’t come to me I know that enough guilt will come from you, leaving me depressed and hurt once more and nothing good will come of this letter. That is why I hesitate to give this to you. I know you are going to say that I need to be there for you, that I need to be strong for you, but I can’t. I can’t.

If I give this to you it is because I finally decided that it needed to be said and I would never be able to say it without crying. I can’t show weakness in front of you, Mom, because I don’t want you to attempt to comfort me. It is so awkward to feel pity or remorse from you that I just can’t stand it. I don’t want hugs or apologies, I don’t want promises or arguments. I just want to be free.

I know you can’t give me that. Not without giving up the one thing you treasure more than my happiness. I know you are so glad to have a house, I know that you have always wanted one, but a house to one can be a prison to others. My cell may have books and my belongings but it is still a cell.

This isn’t all that makes up Julie, Mom, bitterness and spite, depression and fear, there is much more. But I can’t discover me until I get out from under these things. I can’t feel sympathy for you, Mom, so please don’t tell me again how much you’re struggling. If you were truly feeling what I feel, the house would already be sold and we would all be better off.

I can’t let go if you can’t let go, I can’t move on if you can’t move on. The sad fact remains that I am stuck in a very unhappy place and all people can do is make me feel guilty and selfish. I hope you understand why I have written this letter, why I have decided that I must tell you this. I debated and thought that a letter would not be the best thing but I can’t speak well enough to get what I’m feeling across.

I love you, Mom, I do and if you love me you will honestly consider letting me go. I can’t leave until you do something to cut the binds that tie me to the house and to you. I need to be set free. I need to leave.

Love,
Julie