Letter to Mom and Dad

I have a lot of lot of things that run through my mind, and I'm never sure exactly what the best way to get them out is, but I'll try my best to be as clear as possible.

I'm a sad man and I'm living a sad life. I'm never really happy, only sometimes distracted. I feel so lonely all the time. I make friends, even friends who like me and care about me, and maybe there are even some people who love me, but I feel so sad all the time. I wish I could go back and make it all different. I wish I could be something other than what I am. I go through my life like a spectator, because whenever I pay too much attention I just feel sorrow and regret and self hatred and I want it all to go away. I feel so lonely, and I don't think these feelings will ever stop, unless I indulge in some kind of escapism wherein I become something other than what I am, or maybe in the future they'll cure my sickness and there'll be some kind of magical sci-fi cyborg anti-depressant that actually fucking works and makes me feel like a human being.

My name is Donald Alvin Buchanan Jr. I was born on January 7th, 2000, the seventh day of the second millennium, AD, in Corsicana Texas, to Donald Buchanan and Lillian Buchanan. When I was a child I felt happiness and sadness and good and bad like a storm or a dance, but then I hit puberty and became an adult and now I just feel like a non-person all of the time. Most of the time, I barely feel anything at all, but sometimes I ingest substances and I feel some kind of fleeting mania or a masturbatory self indulgent melancholy. These instances are the only thing that keep my going.

I've got it all. My dad was a trucker. My mom had some kind of life ruining mental sickness, a consumption of personality and morality and ability. She laid in bed, her hobbies were crochet and gardening, but most of the time she did nothing at all.

I'm so lonely. I wish I could be someone other than who I am. I feel envy, jealousy, and bitter, bitter, maddening rage and dread, but I almost never just feel alright. I wish I could be something other than what I am.

I had a shitty childhood. That's what I can never get over. That's what all the anger and self pity is about. It's easy to think I should just get over it and live in the present, but I don't think I ever can. I try so hard, and the present never comes. I try so hard all the time and I never feel okay. I feel like an alien. I feel like I'm always a million miles away. I know what I'm supposed to do, but knowing doesn't help.

When I think about you, sometimes I get mad or I want to hate you, but instead I just pity you and feel defeated. You're older and sadder than I am, and I say to myself that if I ever become like you then I'm just going to fucking kill myself, because being like you is the worst fate imaginable.

My mom is not a happy person, and she is not a smart person either. I want to be mad at her, but I understand why she is the way that she is so I can only pity her. When I was a kid, she told me that she wanted to kill herself but she didn't have the courage. She's a victim like I am, but she's also the one who hurt me. I understand about cycles and karma and all that shit and I don't wish her ill, but I don't love her either and I can't help but be angry for what she did and how she formed me. She wasn't a good mom. It wasn't really her fault, but I can't forgive her. When I was a kid I did love her, but then I became an adult and my ability to feel love went away and now I try not to think about her at all.

My dad just confuses me. I don't think he's a stupid person, and I don't think he's a sociopath, but if he's not stupid and he's not a sociopath then I don't understand why he was the way that he was. Maybe he was just better at hiding his pain. Maybe I'll have kids someday and I'll be just as bad as him. The thought terrifies me. Why didn't he see the things that I say even as a child? Why didn't he try to do better?

I'm so bored all the time. They say that only boring people get bored, but I'm always bored and I'm always just objectively really fucking weird.

I had an especially white trash upbringing. One of my childhood chores was burning trash in a burn barrel. I once lived in a town named Blum. I once got beat up by a Mexican kid with a rat-tail because I said that I didn't believe in God and it was a very religious kind of fundamentalist small Texas town, and I was also just really fucking stinky and autistic and bullyable, so I understand where he was coming from.

I have 9 siblings. 2 full, and 7 half, on my mom's side. Jade, Chris, Dee, Candace, Ashley, Benny, Crystal, Alice, and Alexis. Chris died a couple years ago. He was schizophrenic and obese and he got COVID and he died in a hospital on a ventilator and I didn't know until after the funeral was happening because I cut off all contact with my family and my sister Dee had to track me down to find me and tell me about his death. I cried and felt emotions that day, but then in the days afterwards I felt numb again and put it behind me and moved on. We were never close. When I was growing up with him, I thought he was weird and I resented him for not being a full person like me. I've never felt a real kinship with any of my siblings, or any of my family. I've always felt like an alien. The closest I come to feeling human is when I cry for Chris and I wish I could've been a better brother.

My sister Jade is still around. She lives with my mom and dad. I was able to get out and make my own life, but she never had the ability to get out and support herself. I feel like a piece of shit for not being there for her, but I can barely hold myself together, so I don't think I have what it takes to be there for her.