#4 April 15, 2021

Dear Mike,

How do I relinquish my perspective as coming from a tortured childhood?  How do I let go of that?  How do I define myself other than that?  How do I not have that story?  

I will try to remember something good.

I will live in the moments that my mother succeeded in loving me.  

I will appreciate my solitude.  It’s awesome to be alone, to be with myself.  

I had nice cousins.  And Vietnam was different.  My second father was there.  He was kind of nice.  I’m not a black pit of just bad memories.  I’m redefining myself.  There were a handful of times when my mother beat me.  Surely it could have been much worse.

She had issues.  I was just one of her issues.  

She was very stressed.  Life in a country where a war was going on could be hard on anyone.

We played cards.  And Monopoly.  

I existed in the periphery.  

Children are not coddled in Vietnam.  If I was neglected maybe that’s just the norm.  Kids don’t rank in Asian society.  Maybe I just saw it from an American perspective.  Maybe I was just looking for the hurt because the mind naturally gravitate towards the negative.  

Why not celebrate the ways that my mom was a success even amid her catastrophes.

I mean I made it to adulthood.  I didn’t perish.  

She did okay, not stellar but maybe I could just lower my expectations and appreciate that it wasn’t worse.  

Mike, I'm going to make the effort.  If I am defined by a tragic history how could I be more available for the happy spaces.  I’m going to let it go Mike.  All of it.  All the sadness.  All the blame.  All the ways that it was unjust and unfair.  

Please forgive me Mike when I become a better person.  Please leave space in your heart for us being friends.

Betty.