I know I have caused you a lot of pain through the years. I see it sometimes in the way you look at me—careful and holding more than you say. There are moments when the weight of what I put you through still sits between us, whether the eating disorder or the disability, even when neither of us names it. I do not say that to reopen anything. I say it because I see it, and because pretending I do not would feel like another kind of distance. What I hope, more than anything today, is that you get to set some of that weight down. I hope this year gives you room to enjoy your own life—the ordinary, unburdened kind of happiness that does not have to orbit anyone else’s needs or worries. You deserve days that feel light. You deserve to be celebrated without the shadow of old worry following you into the room.
You retaught me how to be a lady. Eventually, a housewife. Not in the glossy, performative way the word sometimes gets used, but in the slower, more stubborn way that actually sticks. You showed me how to carry myself when the room is watching, how to speak with a little more care, how to put things back where they belong even when no one else will notice. And yes—sometimes the lesson was far less elegant. You taught me how to wipe properly, how to clean myself with the kind of thoroughness that does not leave anything half-done. I used to roll my eyes at that. I usually do. Now I understand it was never only about hygiene. It was about not being careless with myself. It was about finishing what I started. Those lessons did not always feel gentle, but they stayed. They still correct me when I get lazy with my own life.
I do not live for anyone else. I know that has been hard for you to watch. My stubbornness has carried me down roads that look nothing like the ones you hoped I would take—timelines that feel delayed, sideways, or simply wrong from where you stand. I have failed publicly and privately. I have chosen things that required you to explain me, defend me, or simply wait. I see the gap between the life you pictured and the one I am still building. I will not pretend the gap is not real. But I also know that the same stubbornness that frustrates you is the thing that keeps me moving when it would be easier to stop. I will get there eventually. I always do. It just takes the shape I choose, not the shape that was mapped out for me.
What I want most, on this birthday and the ones after it, is for the life I am building to eventually bring you something like relief. Not because I finally become the version of me you once expected, but because I become solid enough that you can stop bracing. I want you to look at me one day and feel, without having to work for it, that I am all right—and that some of what you gave me is still alive in how I move through the world. I cannot promise the path will ever match the one you wanted. I can promise I will keep walking it until it holds.
Happy birthday. I hope this year is kinder to you than the ones that taught us both how much we can endure. I hope you get to enjoy it.
