i am my mother's daughter.

when i started going to therapy three months ago, i wasn't sure what i was expecting, but it certainly wasn't what i got - an amazing queer-friendly, sex-positive therapist with pretty progressive politics for a heterosexual professional who looks like a nicer, cuter version of ann coulter. it took only about three sessions until she had me pegged and left me wandering home, mouth agape, with the realization that after 26 years, there was no denying i was my mother's daughter.

i had suspicions this was going to happen. i laugh like my mother - loud, unchecked, and with legs stomping if you really get me going. when i'm upset, my words pour out 100 m.p.h. and my new jersey accent is as thick as molasses (...or maybe toxic, newark sludge). my feet are near mirror images of hers...save for my slightly wider instep and far superior baby toes. she is strong, she is loving, she is smart, she is beautiful. she is my heart and i am hers.

unfortunately though, being my mother's daughter also means that i have been witness to a cycle of emotional abuse that i have not only endured personally, but through her pain and heartbreak as well. my father, a manic depressive, has made 33 years of marriage a task worthy of receiving sainthood. i mean, it would be if you absolutely had to stay or, like, you would die. the fact is, though he has caused us hurt for decades, she has only participated in this violence through her decision to stay married to him and living within the same home. despite her reasons for not leaving being (somewhat) understandable, her continued involvement has enabled a cycle of anger, depression, and neglect. years of debating our staying and going manifested itself into an inescapable pattern for her.

and here i am now - 26 years old and on my own, living and loving the butches and the bois that come and go in some repetitious narrative (dare i say it?) of life that finds me - the strong one, the loving one, the smart one, the beautiful one - playing second fiddle to a conductor without ears. the lack of mutuality, the ungratefulness, the emotional ineptness is staggering, but i have taken it from you. i have participated, i have enabled. i have tried, like my mother, to unsuccessfully make good times out of your bad times. i have put my hurt aside to fix you, to care for you. i have loved you, i have listened to you. i have made you lemon bars, pastina, brownies. i have sent you flowers, taken you shopping, made you care packages. i have kissed your eyebrows, i have sucked your dick. i have raised your self-esteem, i have inflated your ego. i have been your saving grace, your biggest fan, your desire, your love. i have been what you said made you feel whole....

to me, you have been a dearth of reciprocity.

i am my mother's daughter because i believed you, despite the lack of tangible evidence and despite the harsh words, mood swings, emotional voids. i stuck with you. i let it happen again and again.

except then it stopped.

because i was not going to pay one more $200 cell phone bill to hear you tell me that you loved me, but that now was not the time (5 years from now, you say? go fuck yourself!). i was not going to spend one more long weekend/holiday/spring break without you because you couldn't get time off of work, but could, in fact, find time to go to nyc and see your mediocre best friend...and her harem of strippers. i was not going to spread for you on saturday, sunday, and monday for you to tell me on tuesday that you "hated" me. yes, even if you meant it ironically.

you see, i am my mother's daughter, but i am not her twin. i have learned from her mistakes. i have meticulously studied her scars.

i say to you now what my mother should have said to my father at 26:

you, sir, are fired.