My grandmother answered my letter.

I emailed it to her, so there would be no trace of my location. I wasn’t sure if she was a fully trustworthy person.

She didn’t acknowledge anything I wanted her to. In fact, she completely ignored most of my letter.

She updated me about herself, about how no one visits her, about how she gave my father a car so they could come over and they still didn’t visit, about how she could have sold the car to someone else instead.

Then at the end, she asked what school I was going to, and what I did for work. And that was that. No acknowledgement of anything else I wrote. No apology, no further questions, not even a mention of the word abuse.

I was disheartened. I realized that she is likely in denial. I said all I could. There’s nothing more I can do. I can’t force people to accept a reality they don’t want to face.

I was angry. She’s continuing to enable my family. She got them a car. A fucking car. All the while they’re still driving the Jeep that I bought them years ago. And they get a car, too. You know what I get? Nothing. I continue to get nothing. I’m the only one in the family that’s not a complete asshole, and I get shit. I struggle to be on my own and they get consistently get handouts. They get rewarded for being horrible people. Ain’t it funny how life works?

I didn’t reply back to her. I sat with my emotions for awhile. I emailed my therapist about it, and she reminded me that I don’t owe my grandmother anything, and I’m not obligated to send her a reply. The fact that my grandmother is still actively enabling my family makes her an unsafe person. I’m not quite sure it’s worth the added stress to go through a relationship that will never be genuine.

It hurts, but I’m actually so used to the hurt now that it doesn’t affect me like it should.

At least I tried.