Dear Shelby

I'm really mad at you right now.  I've not said it out right until now, but right now, I just really hate every decision you've made, how your actions have changed so many lives and how selfish you still behave.

I hate my life right now.  I closed on my condo last week.  I got a check for $3,000 - more than what I was thinking I was going to get so I was thinking about taking a short getwaway or something - something to clear my head and hopefully get me motivated to this new life I've somewhat agreed to living.  But no, it didn't work out that way.  Instead, I'm having to use the money to pay for a well to be repaired in my ex-husband's house, so we can have some sort of water pressure.  It's already odd enough that I hate living in a house that is no longer mine - nor will I ever consider it to be mine again; living with a man upstairs I was once married to, but for many reasons did not work out - and he has not changed a single bit, and in lots of cases has just become more and more self-involved (even to the point of not properly caring the upkeep on his own residence - which has now become my problem); the weirdness of being together in situations with him - all of that - it's not even like we're friends - we're not.  It's so fucking uncomfortable.  I hate it.  I hate that I hate it and I hate that I can't just accept it and "try to make the best of it" as people have told me.  I wish I could've just taken that money and paid six months rent on a little one-bedroom apartment in midtown and waited for Ebony to get out jail and come get the kids, because that's probably what's gonna end up happening anyway. 

I hate living here.  I hate not having a home.  I hate that you did what you did.  I hate that I feel the way I do.  Just know that you're not the only one who feels like she's in prison.

Love,
Mom

PS
By the way, this is probably the best life your children have ever known and you, nor Ebony, will ever know, or truly appreciate that - and that makes me mad too.