Real Raw Reality

Dear Parent I No Longer Speak To, But Still Grieve

I don’t talk to you anymore.
Not because I stopped caring—
but because I had to start caring about myself.

I wanted to love you.
I wanted to keep the door open.
I wanted things to be different.
But love that hurts, manipulates, or breaks me down isn’t love I can stay close to anymore.

Still…
I grieve.

I grieve the parent I wish you had been.
The safety I never felt.
The apology I never got.
The comfort that only existed in daydreams and what-ifs.

I didn’t walk away to punish you.
I walked away to protect me.
To protect the child in me who spent far too long trying to earn love that should’ve been freely given.

But I do think of you.
In memories that sting.
In moments when I need a parent and still reach for silence.
In holidays and milestones and tiny things I wish I could share.

There’s a version of you I’ve mourned—
the one I never got to meet.
And that grief? It’s real.
Even if the world doesn’t understand it.
Even if you never do.

I loved you.
And I still do.

But now…
I love me more.
(OP: ThisUser)