I Don't Serve You. Anymore.
Catering to the emotions of others is not your job.
Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a healing newsletter for 80s babies by Shani Silver. This newsletter does not publish free content, but if you’d like to read it you can subscribe here. Thank you for enjoying the work of independent writers.
I always resist naming my mother. I won’t mention her outright, blame her in any way, or suggest the things we think inside our heads about the people we were raised to fear. Fear isn’t getting me anywhere, so for once I’d like to try writing about my mother. In 2019 I stopped going “home” to Texas twice a year, as I’d done for two decades prior. Life has lots of awakenings to it—if we’re lucky—and I realized, after maybe too long, that I wasn’t going home for me, I was going home for her. Not because it made her happy, but because I was afraid of what she’d do if I didn’t. Five years ago I left a life of service, and began living a life that finally belonged to me.