Bill,

I am feeling much better. Thanks for your concern.  I don't feel comfortable telling you what city I live in, but I do live in a safe neighborhood, I live paycheck-to-paycheck as do most people my age, but I live comfortably. I am going through a minimalist phase and don't need many material items to get me through the day. I don't have television or internet access in my apartment. I have health insurance which covers most of my bills, I pay a small copay for most things. I am pretty healthy, I go to the gym regularly, practice yoga and meditate, and I eat well.

I would like to preface the rest of the email with this disclaimer. I am a much stronger, smarter, and emotionally healthier person than I was the last time we talked. I have some things I need to say to you that might be uncomfortable. I hope that you are able to read this email with an open mind. I hope that you do not feel attacked; I am merely opening up a line of communication concerning your actions and my feelings. Some of these feelings are still very raw which will hopefully explain the coarseness. Please don’t get defensive and please listen to what I am saying without making excuses or laying blame. You don’t even have to respond if you don’t want to. I just need you to listen.

It was frustrating to read your last email. You have a tendency to project your emotions and assumptions onto people without good reson. A couple of examples: assuming Janet is being hostile towards you because she won’t return your calls, and assuming that I no longer want to talk to you because I didn’t email you for a while. I don't believe that Janet holds any animosity towards you. You called to get in contact with me and that is exactly what happened. She has never said a cruel word against you and has always left the door open to me to make my own decisions regarding your messages. She has no reason to contact you and that is why she won't return your phone calls. Also I need to reiterate to you that I am a very busy woman and I rarely have time to check my email. Even less time to sit down and write out a long letter. I do want to continue having contact with you. I hope that in the future you don’t assume that I have cut contact with you if you don’t hear from me in a couple of weeks.

In your last email you said “What I can't know is how to go about trying to make you understand how much I care about you without being overbearing.”    It’s important for you to know it is not your responsibility to "make" me understand anything. You merely have to be yourself, tell your part, and let the pieces fall where they may. Whether or not I understand something is up to me, not you.

As for the "loss of contact" that was your choice. The last time we talked on the phone I repeatedly asked you to listen without interrupting me. I asked you multiple times, and you refused. At that point I couldn’t handle the emotional toll that having a relationship with you was having on me. I had to let you go.

There is no way for you to understand the damaged caused by a parent who insists he loves you, but cannot or will not show that he loves you.  There were times in my childhood that I was completely crushed by the love I felt for you. It hurt so much to not feel loved in return.  I can’t deny that I still feel love for you. I always will. I want you to know what effect you had on me not to cause you guilt but to help you understand how hard it is to be your daughter. I tried so hard to be someone that you would be proud of, someone that you would love enough to spend time with, someone you wanted to be with but I never felt that you really loved me. It is really hard for me to hear you say things like “I miss you” and “I love you” because I have a hard time believing it.

You also said in your last email that you can’t provide me with material things.  That is not what I want from you. I realized a long time ago that I shouldn't expect anything, especially money from you. It was always clear to me that you didn't have a lot of money, and it has never been that important to me. I do believe that you had and still do have a responsibility as a father to care for a child you created. I also believe that you failed to do that in any clear way. You made a great show of seeming interested and loving, but it always fell through. Your facade of fatherly love crumbled rather quickly as soon as you would make a hurtful comment about my family, run off on a tirade about the government, or ranted about how the whole world was against you. I was too young to really understand what you were saying and was mostly scared and embarrassed by it.

I realize now that you were probably in a situation emotionally and mentally that was not supportive to raising a child. All in all I wouldn’t change much of my childhood since I believe I would be a much different person.  I am greatful for the lessons I’ve learned throughout my life and I hope we are able to continue sharing our lives with each other, but I feel I need to place some boundaries in order to feel safe in this relationship.

Discussion about my family is off limits. I also don’t want to talk about Jim.  I need our relationship to be balanced. In the past I have never really felt that you were listening.  I always felt you were more concerned with yourself and how people saw you than with me.

I am eager to hear your response if you want to write back.

Bill called janet today. She left me a message asking me
what I wanted to do. My immediate
thought was that he is dying and needs me. For emotional and maybe even
physical help. the strangest thing is
that for the last year or so i’ve been toying with the idea of contacting him.
the last week or two i’ve been thinking about contacting him almost on a daily
basis.

it’s all still really surreal to me. i wasn’t too sure how to feel or what to think. i
called mom right away and we ended up having a really amazing talk about a lot
of different topics. bill, of course, sexuality, the sisters, and school. mom really helped me clear my head and i am
better able to understand what i am feeling.

i am very curious. i want to know if he is ok. i want to
know if he is different. i like the fact that he is interested in how i am
doing. i think that is something i am very attracted to in a lot of situations.
i like being the center of attention, and i like feeling necessary, needed,
wanted, missed, etc. there are multiple
problems with that though. first of all, he most likely is not interested in
contacting me to give me attention. more likely, he is calling because he needs
attention. also, he is the reason i have
this innate need to be loved. he is the one who didn’t love me enough or accept
me.

i wonder about this long distance between us. it’s been over
ten years since i saw him. more than 8 since we talked. who has changed more?
which of us for the better? is he happy? did i force this time away as a form
of punishment? you left me now i’m leaving you? i think without knowing it i
did exactly that. at the times that i
have said that no longer wanted contact, i’ve always thought of it as a form of
self defense. i was protecting myself from him and the trauma he caused. but i
think in a way it has become an exile of sorts. most likely one he is unaware
of.

before even dealing with the thought of telling him any of
the past ten years of my life, i have to consider just the thought of hearing
his voice again. just the thought of picking up a phone with the intention of
calling him. of hearing it ring and connect. what will he say? i’d like to
start by telling him that he should be aware that it is very hard for me and
that i may at some point just hang up and that he needs to be ok with that. i
also need to remember that i can totally do that if i need to.

i’m thinking to give myself a week to mull it over. i need
time to really process my feelings. i have an impulse to just call right away
because i am so curious. but i think that will be more hutful in the long run.