Spring

Dear Mom and Dad, 

I don't imagine reading this to you, nor do I plan on doing as much. This was something I wrote to therapeutically address the problem I've been enduring for almost two years now. You've noticed it, I'm sure. But now, it's the first day of spring, and nothing's changed, and I can't stand that. 

You're probably more concerned with where I am than what this letter actually has to say. Fair enough, I guess. Though, I doubt the nightmarish thought of this being a suicide note hasn't crossed through your mind already. No need to worry, I'm okay.

I'm sure for the past year or so you've thought I've hated you both, or at least felt uncomfortable around you. Knowing both of you, you're probably haven't figured out why even though you already know why. I pictured confronting you both about it in my head like it was an episode of the West Wing or something. I would sway into the living room, disagree with something you were saying, and give some grand speech with virtuoso and whit that overmatched yours. I would convince you to listen to reason, to hear the voice of a son crying out for some sort of middle ground. 

I can still picture the fantasy, a late-night. The dim lighting of the in-tables lamps, the shimmer of the fireplace crawling across the wood floor, setting up camp beneath the shadow of Dad's footrest. I can see him too, laid back with his first two fingers stretched across the side of his face, his index pressed against his flaring temple. That look of disdain for a son who dares to talk back to him with such candor. I can see you to Mom, crisscrossed on the far corner of the couch caddy cornered to his chair. Your arms folded with a look of self-righteousness as if to suggest I'm the bad guy. 

I can hear myself saying it, maybe in response to one of Dad's ritual diatribes. You know, the time that occurs just an hour or so after he gets home? He sits in his chair, or wherever is closest to you, Mom, and he begins to rant incessantly about how ignorant everyone is around him and how he's the only one that seems to know anything about everything. I always wondered how you sat through such feats of foul-mouthed stupidity, being someone so easily offended by cursing or spirited language. 

That rhetoric always rubbed me the wrong way, especially since I began to grow into my own, to think for myself. I can see it in my head. Me, turning to him, confronting him directly. Asking how he could consciously sit there and called the world moronic while being as idiotic as anyone else I've ever known. Listing out how he has no college education, no way of telling fact from fiction, believes that anyone that disagrees with him is wrong, believes that skin color changes character, believes that sexuality is a choice. He says these incredulous things, despite thinking emotion and knowledge are equals, despite lacking the empathy needed to imagine what it means to be in someone else's shoes, despite being a man who believes himself right all the time, even if that means labeling everyone else around him with vile vernacular to maintain himself as above them. I could shout all these things before pointing out the hypocrisy of a Christian mother who can't make room in her religion for someone like me, or someone with darker skin than me. Love thy neighbor is just a recommendation to her, and the commandments are merely ideas to aspire to. I would demand answers as to why this all doesn't insinuate self-reflection in either of them and then continue to ask how they could be so backward-ass stupid to believe the things they say and never reckon with consequences of such blatant ignorance? 

Of course, they'd take this as a lashing. Evidence that their youngest son despises them, when in fact, I don't. I don't hate a mother who cleaned my wounds and took me to the emergency room after my first attempted suicide. I don't loathe a father who taught me to work hard and be honest at all times, someone who worked himself into the ground so I could be afforded the opportunities he never was. 

I hate the fact that we never addressed the problem. That we never sat down and had a meaningful dialogue about Dad's bigotry. Neither of you thought of the anguish your rhetoric would have on me, you never even considered asking if I was made uncomfortable by your homophobic slander. All of it was too much for you to change, it was too ingrained into the psyche. I was embarrassed to come from a household that was so stuck in yesteryear. 

I fell in love with free-thinking, with debate, with idealism, and you did everything you could to shove me away from it. To fit into your box, to fit into the design of your best-laid plans. 

I would never say any of this to you. I know that. I was too scared. Haunted by the verbal abuse of a father who threatened me, with the volatile disgust he had for someone who dared to disagree with him. I know he never respected me, neither did you, Mom. That's fine, I guess. I know I didn't turn out as the person you wanted me to be. An intelligent young man who believes in scientific reasoning and researched study over the wisdom of a family member. A man who lied with another man even fell in love with one. A man who gave up on people of the family because they never dared to actually care about me. 

I was a lot to deal with, I know that. But I tried. For a year and a half, I decided to build bridges between us. Each one was broken before I could ever finish, destroyed by parents who would rather me go back to the way things were than try and make it all work. I had to spell everything out for you to try, you could never return the favor. I hated you for it. I still hate you for it. But I love you. I love you because I can't help it. You're my Mom and Dad. 

I left this morning. It was the first day of spring. I moved to go live with my boyfriend in the city. I'm sorry. I just wanted you to know why. 

Sincerely, Shelby