Dear You,
Fuck you.
I don’t know how else to begin this because I am tired of dressing up my anger in mature language. I am tired of trying to understand you. I am tired of making excuses for you, explaining you, forgiving you, hoping for you, defending you, and most of all, hoping for you.
I am tired of the version of myself that keeps thinking, maybe this time.
Maybe this time you’ll mean what you say.
Maybe this time you’ll actually show up.
Maybe this time you’ll realize you have a child.
Maybe this time you’ll understand that being a father isn’t something you perform when it’s convenient.
Maybe this time you’ll keep your fucking word.
And every single time, you prove me wrong.
Not because I didn’t know better.
I knew.
That’s what makes me so angry.
I knew exactly who you had shown yourself to be, and somehow I kept leaving a little door open for the possibility that I had been wrong about you.
I wasn’t.
You just kept proving me right.
And I hate that.
I hate that I ever had to learn you this way.
I hate that I ever loved you enough to believe your promises.
I hate that I ever looked at you and thought, there’s something good in this man.
I hate that I wanted better for you.
And most of all, I hate that somewhere deep inside me, I still wanted you to prove me wrong.
You didn’t.
You just disappointed me again.
And maybe what makes this one hurt differently is that I wasn’t even trying to reopen that chapter.
I had already made peace with the idea that I might never have to see you again. I had accepted that whatever kind of father you chose to be was ultimately your choice, and I had gotten comfortable building my life around the assumption that you wouldn’t show up.
Then my son wrote his birthday wishes.
And one of the things he wished for was to meet his dad.
That was it.
A child’s simple wish opened a door I had spent years trying to nail shut.
I thought, Maybe this is worth trying one more time.
Not for me.
For him.
I wanted to give my son the chance to know his father. I wanted to be able to tell myself that at least I had tried. Maybe you’d grown. Maybe you’d matured. Maybe enough time had passed for you to understand that whatever happened between us was no longer the point.
You had a son.
That should have been enough.
Do you know what makes me fucking furious?
You’re a grown man.
Nobody is forcing you to make promises.
Nobody is holding a gun to your head and making you say you’re going to show up.
Nobody is forcing you to tell me you’re ready to take responsibility.
Nobody is forcing you to say you’ll come see your son.
You could have simply said:
“I don’t want to.”
You could have said:
“I can’t.”
You could have said:
“I’m not ready.”
You could have told me the truth.
I would have hated it.
I would have cried.
I would have been disappointed.
But at least I would have known.
Instead, you keep giving me hope you have no intention of carrying.
And then you disappear.
Again.
And again.
And again.
What kind of person does that?
You don’t get to keep creating expectations and then act shocked when someone is disappointed that you didn’t fulfill them.
You don’t get to keep saying you’ll come and then vanish.
You don’t get to tell me you don’t support because you don’t see your child, then when I literally give you the opportunity to come get him, suddenly there’s another excuse.
You don’t get to say you’ll come today and then block me.
You don’t get to keep moving the goalpost and then blame me for standing in the wrong place.
And you know what? That’s why this betrayal feels so fucking cruel.
Because this time, I wasn’t asking you for anything for myself.
That’s the fucking irony.
I wasn’t asking you to come back.
I wasn’t asking you to marry me.
I wasn’t asking you to be my partner.
I wanted you to be a father.
That’s it.
A father.
My son literally wished to meet you.
And I thought, Okay. Let me give him that.
I swallowed everything I already knew about you. I put aside every reason I had for cutting you off. I allowed myself to hope, just a little, that maybe you would surprise me.
And you did.
Just not in the way I hoped.
You promised.
Then you disappeared.
Again.
And somehow even showing up for your own child became too much to ask.
So now I have to sit here wondering what this does to him.
Will he ever wonder why his father doesn’t come?
Will he think something is wrong with him?
Will he wonder why other children have fathers who show up and his doesn’t?
Will he think he wasn’t worth showing up for?
Because that’s the part I cannot fucking stand. I wish I could take that possibility out of his little heart before it ever gets there.
Because the truth is simple:
You failing to show up has nothing to do with whether he was worth showing up for.
He was.
He is.
He always will be.
Your choices don’t just affect you.
And maybe that’s something you’ve never understood.
A child doesn’t understand adult excuses.
A child doesn’t understand inconsistent fathers.
A child doesn’t understand why someone said they’d come and then didn’t.
They just understand:
“Dad didn’t come.”
And that breaks my heart.
Because my son deserves better.
He deserves to feel wanted.
He deserves consistency.
He deserves to know that his existence is not an inconvenience.
And I swear to God, I will spend the rest of my life making sure he knows that.
Whatever story you choose to tell yourself, whatever excuses you make, whatever bullshit you use to justify your absence, my son will know he was loved.
He will never have to question that with me.
And yes, I’m angry at myself too.
I am fucking angry at myself.
Because why did I believe you again?
Why?
I knew your pattern.
I knew the disappearing.
I knew the promises.
I knew the disappointment.
I knew how this usually ended.
And yet when you showed up again, some stupid, hopeful part of me thought:
Maybe he’s finally grown.
Maybe fatherhood finally changed something.
Maybe time changed him.
Maybe maturity finally caught up with him.
Maybe this time my son would get the father he deserves.
What a fucking joke.
I hate that I still had that hope.
I hate that I gave you another opportunity to disappoint me.
I hate that I let myself imagine something better.
But I’m not going to spend the rest of my life punishing myself for hoping.
Because hope wasn’t the problem.
You were given an opportunity to do better, and you chose not to.
That’s yours.
Not mine.
And let me tell you something else.
I’m done being your excuse.
I’m done being the woman you blame when you don’t want to take responsibility.
I’m done being the woman you only remember when it benefits you.
I’m done being available for your convenience.
I’m done believing that because you once loved me, or claimed to love me, that somehow that gives your behavior meaning.
Love without responsibility is just another word people use when they want access without accountability.
And I’ve had enough.
You don’t get access to me just because you once had me.
You don’t get to walk in and out of my life whenever you feel like it.
You don’t get to appear when you’re lonely, disappear when responsibility arrives, and then expect me to remain emotionally available.
No.
That woman is dead.
The woman who kept waiting for you to become dependable is dead.
The woman who interpreted your promises as plans is dead.
The woman who thought your potential deserved more chances is fucking dead.
And maybe the most embarrassing part is that I once wanted you.
I wanted you so badly that I overlooked things I should never have overlooked.
I wanted to believe the good outweighed the bad.
I wanted to believe your words.
I wanted to believe the version of you that you presented when you wanted something from me.
I wanted to believe that beneath everything, there was a man who would eventually choose responsibility.
I was wrong.
And I’m not ashamed to admit that anymore.
I was young.
I loved you.
I wanted to believe in the father of my child.
But I don’t owe my younger self hatred for making decisions with the information and emotions she had at the time.
I owe her compassion.
Because she didn’t know.
And when she finally knew, she still hoped.
That’s human.
What’s not human to me anymore is continuing to ignore the evidence.
And the evidence is you.
I hope one day you understand what you’ve lost.
Not me.
I’m not even talking about me.
I’m talking about the relationship you could have had with your son.
I hope one day it hits you.
I hope one day you realize that children don’t stay little forever.
There will be a day when he doesn’t need to wonder where you are because he’ll have already formed his opinion.
There will be a day when you can’t suddenly decide you want to be his father and expect years of absence to disappear.
There will be a day when he is old enough to understand.
And I hope you understand that you can’t rewind childhood.
You can’t give someone back the years you weren’t there.
You can’t refund missed birthdays.
You can’t recreate missed conversations.
You can’t manufacture memories after the fact.
Time doesn’t work that way.
And that’s your choice.
Not mine.
Do I want karma to find you?
Yes.
I’m angry enough to say it.
I want life to humble you.
I want you to experience consequences.
I want every broken promise to come back and sit in your lap.
I want you to understand what it feels like to wait for someone who doesn’t show up.
I want you to understand what it feels like to believe somebody and then realize they were never serious.
I want you to understand what it feels like to have somebody make you hopeful and then disappear.
I want you to understand the frustration.
The anger.
The humiliation.
The disappointment.
The fucking ache.
But I don’t need to orchestrate it.
Life can handle that.
I don’t need your bikes stolen.
I don’t need your money gone.
I don’t need some dramatic disaster to happen to you.
I don’t need revenge.
Your choices are already consequences.
Whatever kind of man you become is your punishment or your reward.
Whatever relationship you eventually have with your son is yours to live with.
Whatever you do with your life is no longer my concern.
I am releasing you from my mental courtroom.
I’m no longer the judge.
I’m no longer the prosecutor.
I’m no longer waiting for you to plead guilty.
I’m done.
And I hope you never contact me again just because you suddenly feel nostalgic.
I hope you never come back with another story.
Another apology.
Another promise.
Another “I’ve changed.”
Another “I’ll do better.”
Another fucking maybe.
Because I don’t want it anymore.
I don’t want your potential.
I don’t want your promises.
I don’t want your explanations.
I don’t want your guilt.
I don’t want your pity.
I don’t want your breadcrumbs.
I don’t want to be chosen after I’ve spent years begging the universe for evidence that I matter.
I don’t want to win you anymore.
I don’t want you.
And maybe my heart won’t understand that immediately.
Maybe there will still be days when some stupid memory makes me nostalgic.
Maybe there will be days when I wonder what you are doing.
Maybe there will be days when I remember who I thought you were.
That’s okay.
My heart is allowed to take longer than my mind.
But my decisions no longer belong to my longing.
Maybe that’s also why I had to write all of this.
Because I have spent too many years swallowing things.
Swallowing disappointment.
Swallowing anger.
Swallowing words I wanted to scream.
Swallowing the ache of being let down and then pretending I was fine because there was always something else that needed doing.
But I’m learning that everything we refuse to say doesn’t simply disappear.
Sometimes it sits in your chest.
Sometimes it follows you into bed.
Sometimes it becomes the headache you can’t explain, the tightness in your body, the stomach that won’t settle, the blood pressure that rises when you’re already carrying too much.
So tonight I’m not swallowing this.
I’m putting it somewhere.
On paper.
Out of my head.
Out of my body.
Out of the places I’ve been storing it.
I’m not writing this because I want you to read it.
I’m writing it because I need to stop carrying it.
This letter is the place where I get to be angry without having to become cruel. Where I get to say fuck you without needing revenge. Where I get to admit that I wanted you to do better without pretending I don’t care.
And then I get to put it down.
I’m choosing my son.
I’m choosing myself.
I’m choosing stability.
I’m choosing money.
I’m choosing my business.
I’m choosing the home I want to create.
I’m choosing a life where rent isn’t a monthly panic.
I’m choosing a life where I can buy my son what he needs without begging anyone.
I’m choosing a life where we travel.
Where we laugh.
Where he grows up knowing that even if one person didn’t show up, he was never abandoned by everyone.
I’m going to build something so stable that your absence becomes irrelevant.
Not because I’m trying to prove anything to you.
But because I want freedom.
I want to wake up and know we’re okay.
I want to be able to handle emergencies without looking around for someone to save us.
I want to be able to give my son opportunities without wondering whether somebody will keep a promise.
I want to be able to say no without fear.
I want to be able to leave situations that don’t respect me.
I want to be able to live.
Really live.
And I don’t want your money to make that possible.
I don’t want your approval.
I don’t want your presence.
I don’t want your rescue.
I want mine.
So this is the part where I bury you.
Not literally.
Don’t flatter yourself.
I am burying the version of you that existed in my head.
The father I hoped you’d become.
The man I thought you could be.
The promises you made.
The future I imagined.
The apologies I waited for.
The accountability I kept hoping you’d develop.
The calls I hoped you’d make.
The day I thought you’d finally wake up and say:
“I fucked up. I’m sorry. Let me make it right.”
I’m burying all of it.
I’m putting it in the ground.
And I’m not digging it back up.
You can keep your excuses.
Keep your stories.
Keep your disappearing acts.
Keep whatever life you’ve chosen.
Keep your bikes.
Keep your money.
Keep your relationships.
Keep your pride.
Keep whatever version of yourself allows you to sleep at night.
I don’t want any of it.
And perhaps that’s what makes this burial so difficult.
I didn’t bury you because I stopped caring.
I buried the expectation because my son reminded me that I still cared enough to hope.
His little birthday wish made me open a door I thought I’d permanently closed.
And now I’m closing it again.
Not because he doesn’t deserve to know his father.
But because I cannot keep standing at the door waiting for someone who keeps choosing not to walk through it.
If one day you decide to become consistent, that will be your decision to make.
But it will no longer be something I build my emotional life around.
I am done preparing myself for your arrival.
I am done preparing myself for your absence.
I am done preparing myself for disappointment.
And to the version of me who keeps asking:
“Why did I choose him?”
Because you were young.
Because you loved.
Because you hoped.
Because you didn’t have a crystal ball.
Because you thought people meant what they said.
Because you believed the best in someone.
And because Adriel exists.
I won’t rewrite my son’s existence as a mistake just because his father disappointed me.
My son is not the mistake.
My son is not the consequence.
My son is one of the greatest things that came out of a chapter I would never choose to repeat.
So I won’t spend the rest of my life wishing him away.
I’ll simply wish the man who came with that chapter away.
I release the anger.
Not because you deserve forgiveness.
Because I deserve peace.
I release the bitterness.
Not because what you did was okay.
Because I don’t want to carry your failures around in my body anymore.
I release the disappointment.
Not because I shouldn’t have expected better.
Because I finally accept that you may never become better.
I release the hope.
Not because hope is bad.
Because I’ve finally found somewhere better to put mine.
In myself.
In my son.
In the life we’re building.
You were supposed to be part of the village.
Instead, I learned how to build one without you.
You were supposed to be someone my son could depend on.
Instead, I’ll teach him that love is demonstrated through consistency.
You were supposed to make things easier.
Instead, you taught me not to build my stability around somebody else’s promises.
And maybe that’s the final thing I take from you.
Not your pain.
Not your betrayal.
Not your disappointment.
The lesson.
So goodbye.
Not the dramatic kind.
Not the kind where I secretly hope you’ll come running after me.
A real goodbye.
The kind where I stop checking the door.
The kind where I stop wondering whether you’ve changed.
The kind where your name eventually becomes just a name.
The kind where I hear something about you and feel absolutely nothing.
The kind where my son and I are so busy living that you become a footnote in a chapter we already finished.
I don’t wish to see you again.
I don’t wish to understand you anymore.
I don’t wish to fix you.
I don’t wish to punish you.
I don’t wish to love you.
I don’t wish to hate you.
I just wish for distance.
Permanent, peaceful, boring distance.
And if there is another lifetime after this one, I hope the universe has the good sense to keep our paths on opposite sides of it.
Because I have spent enough of this lifetime learning what your presence costs me.
I want the rest of my life to be about what peace gives me.
So this is my final release.
I’m putting this anger down.
I’m putting the bitterness down.
I’m putting the disappointment down.
I’m putting the hope down.
I’m putting the waiting and the wondering down.
I’m putting the promises down.
I’m putting my maybe down.
I’m putting you down.
And this time, I’m not picking any of it back up.
You can go.
And I can finally stay.
I hope we never meet again.
I hope we never need you in this lifetime.
And I hope we never meet in the next one either.
