Letters to my daughters

I see you.

I see you everywhere. I feel you everywhere, Mothers and Daughters. On tv, in books, on cards at the grocery store, and all the cute quotes on the internet. I see parents and daughters every day in person. I see a family playing at the park all filled with smiles, I see a dad and daughter having breakfast across from me at a restaurant, I see the mother peacefully holding her child in line at the store …I see them…I see you…I see us. It hurts. There isn’t a day you’re not on my mind or that my heart doesn’t ache that you’re not here with me.

My heart is heavy because I know you have felt the worry of being unsure if I love you. I am so sorry for that.

If you could feel just for a moment inside my heart and the depths in which it cries out for you.

I have made mistakes, a lot of them. I still question why I was born the way I am, why I had to go through what I did, and why I couldn’t handle it better.

It has taken me a while to figure out how I wanted to write this to you, because there is so much I want to say and get through to you. I guess I just want so very badly to help you understand my side in some way and maybe help heal some of the damage I have done.

But I am a perfectionist of sorts, and a major procrastinator with a huge fear of failure.

So many times I have started this, and many times I have put it right back down because I am afraid I won’t be able to succeed at writing a good book. And if I am being honest with myself, I can recognize that there is a part of me that is avoiding writing this because I will have to once again face all these things that have happened. Some of them out of my control, some of them done by my very hand. All of the undealt with little traumas that I have stuffed deep inside hoping to never be shown the light of day again. They can’t stay there forever though, they don’t.

I have come a long way in my life, but I know that there is only so far I can go until I find a way to start healing them. Don’t get me wrong, I have moved on and grown through a lot of the events of my past. I have figured out a way to work through them and find peace, even learning lessens from them that I use as tools for stability in my life now. But there is one thing I still have not been able to figure out how to move on from or work through, nor am I sure I can. You girls, I don’t know how to fully forgive myself and certain others, to get to a better place about it all that maybe brings some peace to my soul. This is a wound I am not sure can be healed, because you are my daughters and I am your mother and I failed and lost you.

Can I tell you a secret? I had a realization a little while back that awakened my greatest fear-

See, I have always just had this assumption that we would always be close, no matter what. And when I lost you I had a small sense of peace knowing that it’s not too far down the road before you are adults and can make your own choices, and we can be together again. But then it hit me, there is no guarantee that coming back into my life is going to even be something you want, and that someday that may be something I will have to deal with. I pray to God all the time for the strength to deal with all this because this is the hardest thing I will ever have to deal with in my life and I really don’t know how to manage the pain it brings up thinking about it.

I am grateful my dog Britney came into my life, she has become my emotional support dog, just as I am her emotional support human. She brings peace to my soul when it cries out in pain. She fills the void of loneliness, and brings joy to my heart. I wish you guys could meet her. I rescued her from violence and pain, we both come from a broken past, but both still know how to love.

I have many more letters to write you, many more things to say, but for now I will leave you with wishes of sweet dreams tonight. I know you will be in mine.