You and Dad didn’t have great childhoods. I know that. And I know that, comparatively speaking, my upbringing was pretty good.

But it feels like, once this problem started, it latched on to us permanently. Nothing’s been fixed, nothing’s gotten better. If anything, things have only gotten worse with time.

I wish I knew how to solve this problem. I wish this problem didn’t exist in the first place. I wish I could have been the one to break the chain, to have been the one with a solid, healthy relationship with their mother. The relationship that you and Dad are unable to have with yours.

I still wish we could reach that point. I just don’t know how.

In an idealized future, I’ll get married and the two of us will have children. It’s more likely that we’ll adopt. It’s possible that I won’t get married at all, actually. But let’s say that I do.

I’d like to think that I’d be a good mom. I want to believe that I’d try my best to communicate with them, to achieve some degree of mutual understanding.

I want to think that I’d do better.

Isn’t that what you told me, some time ago? That you wanted to do better?