Dear so and so...
I don't write *every day*... lord knows, I don't even write *every week* but just because you don't hear from me all the time doesn't mean I don't love you...
...and it doesn't give you license to say harsh things, either. You could always discipline me as a child with a look... so why did you always have to say such biting things? Did it make you feel better, like you have something accomplished, or said your piece? Is that it?
Thank God for selective memory. I'd completely forgotten a lot of what you'd said while I was a kid... until I found little bits of a journal I'd kept a long time ago. I repeated these horrible things as if they were empty, idle conversation. Truly hurtful things had become the norm. And I go on to wonder why I've gone through emotionally abusive relationships in my past and continually fear I will repeat my forbears' mistakes, fear hearing their words come out of my mouth without thought? You'd think that I'd know better, given my vehement dislike for such abrasiveness, but no... without thinking, I blurt these things and manage to hurt my own feelings and someone else's.
I don't ask you to be a nice person... just be accepting and warm, or leave me alone. You've done nothing significant for me since I was a cute little minor in your house. I moved away and you rewarded my efforts to contact you with hurtful words, intimidation and cruelty. I went through difficult times in my life and you comforted me with the silent treatment, telling me how wrong my decision making was, my happiness be damned.
And you wonder why I don't have this burning desire to go home?
My only real solace is the fact that you've finally ceased to ask about grandchildren. All it took was for me to tell you that my GF and I will keep trying. A little shock treatment never hurt anyone, especially when it was merely a reciprocation.
Keep your bucolic fantasies to yourself. My kind of life isn't welcome there, and I will not sacrifice love, nor the freedom to hold my lover's hand and kiss her passionately in the street for what semblance of 'home' you will attempt to give me...

Sorry. Mutual rejection hurts.