ayup, i know what you mean. i've written The Letter (of divorce) to the Sperm and the Womb and here it sits... i know i need to just send it but this little 'peacekeeper, fixit' voice in my head keeps saying "oh, why send it - why make waves, maybe they'll change someday, maybe if you keep trying ..." Hah!! they're in their 70s now and guess what - they still hurt me and mine every chance they get. how stupid do you have to be? but the hardest part is that I don't want to cause them pain. Ok here's the real irony. what i've been thinking about most isn't MY pain - of course - but which would hurt them most - not to ever hear from me or be able to contact me again, with no explanations or warning; or a letter letting them know and finally, FINALLY giving them back the responsibility for their own actions. it's so ironic - i keep finding myself thinking not of me, not of what it would mean for me to give up that responsibility and get on with my life - but of them, and which would be more painful for them. and the REALLY ironic part of that is that i can't tell which would be more painful for them because they aren't 'normal' parents. I mean normal parents would, of course, want to know that their kid wasn't oging to be in contact with them and why. they'd want to konw their kid wasn't dead or abducted or something!! but of course they aren't normal, and so I can't even figure out which they'd rather - to know and have to read a painfully honest letter or to be ignorant and never knwo what happened. i keep catching myself thinking this and each time i have to refocus, remind myslef that it's not up to me to take care of them - it's up to me to deal wiht my own self, to take care of myself. but it's such an old pattern that i keep forgetting and going back to them, them, them ... amazing, huh?