Over you.

Dealing with loss is difficult. No, its more than that; it’s heartbreaking and lonely. You are constantly plagued with images of the people you love walking away from you. The child in you running and running to try and get her family back. Screaming and pounding her little bare feet on the stone cold ground. “Mummy don’t go. I’ll be better. I’ll be strong. Please don’t leave me? I need you”.

I need you but maybe you don’t need me anymore. Am I being crazy? Irrational? I could have sworn I’d seen love in your eyes once. Are you over me? Do I need to alter my perception of you over night and forget you are my mother. The woman who made me and the woman who told me I was her baby and I’d always be. I only ask because over the last few years I have tried my hardest to forget you. I’ve tried to deny your existence which has killed me inside even more. I’ve even tried pretending you had died. But you dying would bring me closure and I’m sat here with tears and more questions than answers. 

Let me try and pretend.

Over you, I’m so very over you. The way that you kissed the top of my head and the beat of your heartbeat when I was safe inside your arms. When I reported him you stood by him and it wasn’t a fight of just me against him. It was you not fighting for me. You said you loved me and you walked away. You chose to turn your back on your own child. Who does that? I need this to be over. I need this to be completely over because I can’t take this pain anymore. Maybe if I tell myself enough, I’ll get over you. Because there is simply a me and a you. Us isn’t there anymore. I need to remember that it was over two years ago and it’s still over now. I’m over you.

I don’t think I could ever truly replace you. You had three children so replacing one isn’t difficult. You can direct your attention to your eldest who’s getting married or the twin who has stuck by your side. You have people and you can risk losing one or two if you ever decide to. If you could truly be over losing one daughter then maybe it’s easy. Whereas for me I don’t have anyone left. You were it. All of you. I only get one mother and I don’t have a back-up. I never have and I never will. I don’t think I could love anyone in the same way that I have loved you.

When people mention you I have to go into autopilot. If they know you’ve gone and what I did, then it’s easy. They just don’t mention it. But if they do? I have to lie and say you’re okay and that we are all excited for Christmas. I lie about how supportive you’ve been of my recovery. I don’t know which is worse because the awkwardness of someone accidentally mentioning you or them talking about their own mother and me not being able to contribute is excruciating. But having to lie and create this dream which I am desperate to be real hurts like a knife stabbing my skin. But I’m over you, aren’t I? Even the way that you used to laugh at my sarcasm or the way I was terrified of walking on the ice and you used to protect me. And the way you would stroke my forehead before sleep which always made me feel better. Yes, completely over you.

Maybe if I tell myself enough, I’ll get over you. You’re the one who’s struggling not me and maybe it’s a bigger deal to you and not me. Or have I got the roles reversed? My mistake. You’re fine, right? I don’t think you walking away was all to do with what I did. It wasn’t what happened at all, it was just that maybe I was never meant to be your daughter. But I love you and I want you and I have stayed away for two years and I’ve let you control this. You told me you loved me and you walked away. You told me to wait but I’m not waiting anymore. It’s now or never. My ultimatum to you. Because I can’t keep going the way I am. It hurts. And I have to let go because it hurts too much. It hurts too much.

Do you think about the person I have become? The people I have in my life now? If I’m okay? I keep thinking and worrying about you. I don’t want you to die before I have a chance to talk to you. To tell you everything that happened all those years ago. About how much I love you even though you abandoned me. Because you are my mother and I will always have a part of you inside me. I can’t change that and you have no idea how much I wish to. I tried to remove every ounce of you from my life. The clothes I used to wear, the childhood pictures and teddy bears, the perfume, the heart shaped bowls, the cards, and even the image I have in the mirror. But I’ve realised that I can throw out physical memories and I can change the way I look but you will always remain. Because you can’t remove the memories from inside your head. Not without losing every other memory. I’m not ashamed to say that many of my suicide attempts were to remove you and therefore remove myself by default. To be completely over you. I never belonged in your family. I never really did. I want to be the daughter you want to want. And because I was never enough, I need to let go now.

Maybe, just maybe, if I tell myself enough I’ll get over you.

But so far, all I’ve done is stumble and fall trying to get over you but I keep ending up falling around you.