So in my reply to her message I dug out a 9 year old email I sent her apologizing for not being a better parent to her and her gracious reply. My only new addition was to tell her that I still felt that way. Her reply that arrived today said she didn't and was in fear for her life from my original black humor from her teenage years. This while she was in San Francisco and me in Houston.
Since she continued in the same vein it tells me she just wants to keep punishing me for cruel treatment I don't remember at all. I am sad but I know that there is nothing I can do to help or fix this until she is willing to forgive me and let it go. If my parenting scarred her it was not intentional, her continued attacks on me are deliberate. But you know, with 27 years in an awful marriage, I am a master at looking at the good parts of my life and putting the nightmare stuff in a box in the back of the closet. I'm okay.

It hurts. Why is it so hard to say?

She wrote me again. It was awful still but carries the hope of a reconciliation. Of course it would be on her terms only. I printed it and ran to my partner for his wisdom which he imparted very thoughtfully and generously. Today he keeps asking me if I am okay. I lie and say I am. It hurts. My actual physical chest aches and maybe that pump inside my chest is the source of the pain. The she in the first line is my second born daughter who blames me for her pain, saying I told her that I would have killed her had she not been so pretty. Did you read would have? That joke has gone back in time to when she was an uncomprehending child and morphed into my threatening her life. My poor choice of her father has further become all my fault and when I sent her to live with him briefly I was also exposing her to bodily harm and possibly murder. Which potential murderer did she want to live with? Me or him? I married at a very immature 21 and she was the result of an unintended pregnancy. Shoot me. I divorced and remarried someone I loved and hoped was better. Scores of people can attest to his complete personality change. I stayed with this person for 27 years in a cold loveless marriage being mute and invisible to him. It provided her with shelter, healthcare and my presence in the home. The first divorce taught me that I didn't want freedom if it accompanied poverty for me and my daughters. I didn't care to be free to leave them at daycare all day while I worked a low wage job to pay rent on an apartment in a bad neighborhood. She was indeed a lovely girl but she was also unpleasant, adversarial, brilliant and demanding. Cue puberty and stand clear. She got caught with drugs and was suspended from school for a semester to a reform facility that required my driving her to and from. I also tried many shrinks, counselors and drug therapies; none worked. She missed so many days in high school that it was touch and go about her graduating at all.
Today she is successful, moderately famous and three years ago after months of no contact with me announced that I should susupend communications until she could bear it. From her sister I learned that I had abused her. I tried writing her a letter and got an acid filled email dismissing it as my mundane life and reiterating that I should stop. Last year when she was to play at a famous venue I bought tickets and planned to enjoy her performance from afar. Getting wind of it I got another venomous message asking me to stay away. I did tearfully. Now I get a long, "this is all the damage you did to me and these are the only terms for us to resume talking" email. It hurts and I don't want to hurt and cry and ruin the time I have with my wonderful partner, my upcoming grandchild and the rest of my adult children. No arguments will change her perception of my bad mothering. My family is well-populated by those of us who don't argue and fight. It's the old saw, "You weren't reasoned into it and you can't be reasoned out of it." We just walk away and don't come back, ever.

July to almost November

Much has changed as I am no longer wearing the 14's and 16's and have dropped down to 166 or so. I am back in 12 jeans and feeling much better. Since I had a birthday and dropped down from 170's to 160's I have lost Weight Watcher points too. It is harder and I get to eat less. But with help from other in my meeting I have found some food items with almost no points that satisfy me. I haven't been going to the gym in the past month and can tell the difference. I have less energy and my weight loss has slowed. The Kevin Riddle reunion cake was delicious so that accounted for some of the slight gain and slower loss.

I think I have to tell myself that I will never be cured and will always have to be vigilant about food. It helps to know that others share this struggle and just because other women don't talk about it doesn't mean that it isn't happening to them too.

Back in the WW saddle again. The scales (179), the mirror, the camera and the clothes (14's & 16's) can't all be lying. I am trying a new instructor and a new location to see if it will work any better, longer and not have me crawling back and back and back. this has been going on since 1971 in the old days of liver once a week and canned tuna. But it is healthy and it works if I work it. In keeping with the resolve yesterday when I rejoined, I went to yoga class last night and staggered up to do 45 min. on the recumbent bike too. Didn't eat today until 3pm and still wasn't really hungry. Had leftover veg soup with deck of cards size of leftover brisket and a Diet Rite Zero. I had decided to get off aspartame but looks like I am away from that now. I will try not to be such a whore about them as I was and stick mainly to iced tea, green decaf tea enhanced with lemonade Crystal Lite store brand stuff but today after the soup I wanted a little sweet. It has been in the fridge a while and I worried that it might have expired and I'd get a mouthful of carbonated water but no. It hit the spot. Tonight at 7:30pm I am going back for more punishing yoga and the bike too. I am reading a book called "The End of Overeating" but that seems very optimistic but it is keeping me thinking about this battle I fight again and again. A little like the Vietnam war where we took areas only to lose them and have to fight and retake the same ground. So I am getting into the pink camo to go to war against the creeping immortal and returning fat.

Of what?

What is it that I'm supposed to be cured of? Insecurity, self-consciousness, doubt, they're all still with me, following me like a shadow for lo these many years.