"Forgive the fuck out of someone today."

As I've said already, I am trying to focus on myself right now and get to a better place. And that means working through some crappy things along the way. With the help of the Spiritual AF cards, I am determined to finally put a lot of old demons squarely behind me.

Where else would I start but with the person who has lied to and betrayed me the most, my own mother?

We haven't exchanged so much as a word or a text since this past October when I found out that she has known all of my life who my biological father was and yet she lied and said she didn't. Now, after that man has passed away and any chance of me getting to know him died along with him, she thought it was the time to say something.

Those were the last words we spoke to each other. And they will be the last words we ever do speak to each other, because that lie was the last straw for me. I refuse to continually offer my love to someone who has only denied me the single most important truth I ever needed.

So, we are done. And she will never be in my life again. But I realize, that is only true once I find a way to forgive her. Not for her sake, honestly, because I am done caring what might be good for her. I need to find a way to forgive her for my own emotional well-being. As the poet and author Merrit Malloy writes, "relationships that do not end peacefully do not end at all."

Well, now is the time for this relationship to end, once and for all.

I forgive you, Shirly Ann. I forgive you for being so ashamed of your own behavior that you chose to deny me what was rightfully mine. I forgive you for being so afraid of the consequences of your own actions that you manifested your very worst fear, losing me. And I forgive you for being just another link in a long chain of horrible mothers who passed on to their children selfishness instead of compassion, lies instead of honesty, and betrayal instead of love.

I'm letting go of all of this because it no longer serves me. I needed the rage to finally sever all connection to her, but I've done that. I'm standing completely on my own and I no longer look to her for anything. She is now a stranger to me, no more or less important than any of the other millions of people in this world.

This is the last I will speak of her. With these words, and this forgiveness, she is gone.