A Letter For Emery Lane

A Letter For Emery Lane

Written by: Alessa Strachlin.

Dear Emery Lane.

I’ve thought about you a lot the last few days. I don’t really know what to think when I think of you. I think about what would happen if I could actually talk to you in person, like if I could travel back in time and just sit down and talk with you, I think about what I’d say to you, what you’d say back to me. I think about how you’d react if you saw me now. Maybe you’d be happy we made it to 15, maybe you’d be sad we weren’t gone like we planned. For the record, I’m kind of happy we aren’t, I know that might surprise you, but it’s true. I know that, 13 year old Emery is screaming at me right now for saying that and I understand why, but now I know when she grows up to be 15 year old Emery she’ll be saying the same thing. So, I can safely say I’m glad the attempts didn’t work.

To be completely honest I wouldn’t have done this, writing this letter I mean, I wouldn’t have done this if it wasn’t a stupid school thing or if once I told our therapist about it and now she is making me do it. Yes past Emery we’re in therapy, yay! When Mr. Andrew (our english teacher) brought up the assignment it did get me interested, up until now I’ve kind of tried to forget about you, I don’t talk about my life before I moved to live with Oliver, even to my friends I hardly ever mention mom or dad, I never tell them what it was like to grow up in that house, what they were like, all the stuff they did, or the stuff they didn’t do.

Also for context I should tell you, just before our 15th birthday we moved in with Oliver, he just showed up one day at the house came inside told us to pack a bag or two and go outside, it was sudden and kind of scary, before I left to get my stuff the look on mom and dads face was just angry. I had heard them arguing, not yelling, but arguing. Apparently he had wanted to take us away from mom and dad since he moved out, and Lizzie had been helping him work everything out. I still don’t see Liz often but she comes around for holidays sometimes. The only bad thing about living with Oliver is he makes me do homework which is annoying, but I get it, “You’re super smart Em get your work done.” That's what he says all the time, again kind of annoying but I do get it.

I need to tell you something. And yes I know there’s no possible way for this letter to actually go back in time for you to read this but I think I’m writing this part for me I guess. But not everything is your fault, you don’t have to clean up everybody's mess, you don’t need to apologise for all the bad things mom and dad did and still do. They were nothing but manipulative, narcissistic, neglective, pieces of human trash. They hardly ever really cared for us, or Oliver, or Lizzie. I know why you always tried to make up for the stuff they did, but as much as you try nothing can make up for all the years of neglect they put all three of us through, I guess it just took us longer to realise that because honestly even now I still haven’t fully learned that, I’m just trying to tell you the stuff our therapist and Oliver are telling us. I don’t know how much of it I’m believing. I know it’s hypocritical of me to tell you to do things that even I still haven’t done but should be doing.

 I guess even now, even now that I understand that all they did was wrong and we should’ve been out of the horrible house long before we were taken out it’s still hard to come to terms with the fact mom and dad, as much as they put on a stupid fake face and said they loved us, if they did they wouldn’t have left us alone for days when we were just a stupid kid, if they did really love us they wouldn’t have gotten into screaming matches over the stupidest tiniest things. They didn’t care about us as much as they claimed. That’s the hard part to cope with.

I think when you realise that life doesn’t get 100% better but instead it doesn’t stay the same, you make a decision at some point that giving up on everything isn’t the best option. Things for us don’t get good, they get okay, I don’t know if things will ever get good or anywhere near, but I hope they will eventually. Now we have friends, it’s just a group of 4 of us including myself, not too big which I’m definitely okay with. Now we’re living away from mom and dad and with Oliver. Now we’re getting help for the things we need help with. Now, things are going okay. And maybe in the future things will be good but at least right now we’re okay just things just being okay.

Well past Emery, I think this is it, I don’t know what else to tell you. I know I said I try not to think about you, which is true, but I need to. I need to think about you more, and I will. The whole point of this letter is to tell you that you will be happy that we didn’t die, you will be happy eventually. And I know that I’m talking to past Emery, and that I can’t change all the things we did, and in some weird way I’m happy I can’t change it. It becomes a part of us, it probably isn’t the best part of who we are but it’s a part nonetheless. So Emery I hope all I’ve said makes some sort of sense to you.

Goodbye Emery Lane.

Sincerely, Emery Lane.