Thank you all for coming today,
And thank you,
Oh, and thank you,
I forgot I invited you, but thank you for coming,
And,
Hey you.

 

I have a lot of things to say.

 

I’m not good at pretending.

 

Pretending not to care,
Pretending to actually care,
Pretending that it’s not funny when you’re mad at me,
Because it’s not.

 

So I’m not good at lying,
But I’m also not good at truth-ing.

 

My words fling back in either your face or mine,
And 90% of the time I tell you that you’re wrong.
And I know that, for that, I’m wrong.

 

Half of you are here because you’re related to me,
And that’s fine,
Because that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
That somehow through the intertwining entities of space and time,
You’re mine, and,
That’s cool.

 

But the rest of you met me somewhere along the timeline
Between divorce papers and now I’m fine,
And you’ve all stayed this long.

 

And we can all agree that sometimes
I am impossible to get along with.
No.
There’s no need to raise your hands.
We’re not taking a vote.
We all understand.

 

But you’re all still here.

 

And through the last five years
Of anxiety, and fear of whether to be or not to be,
And the nights that I wouldn’t even let myself
B-R-E-A-T-H-E,
You told me it was going to be okay.

 

You,
You told me that I would figure it out,
And you believed her beyond any doubt.
You said that it was perfectly okay to cry,
And you said that I should never stop trying,
And you told me you loved me.

 

And I can’t pretend not to notice
The differences deepening this divide between us.
I dissect the dictation of the dissonance
And I come to the realization of this
That you have made all the difference.

 

I could have never gotten out of that house,
That town,
That state
Of disillusion,
Where I wasn’t convinced by my own
Careful calculations.

 

And I said, “I can’t do this.”
And you said, “Yes you can.”

 

I was empowered by that energy.
That you believed in me, because I was:
Your daughter,
Your granddaughter,
Your sister,
Your student,
Your friend.

 

And if I could go back and do it all over again,
I would find
Every
One
Of you.
Because although I may not have deserved you,
I needed you.
And I still need you.

 

I guess what I’m trying to say in a round-about way is:
Thank you.

 

And I know that I’m not good at getting things off my chest,
But I’ll try my best.

 

Because I love
Every
One
Of you.

 

And thank you,
And, oh, thank you,
And hey you,
Thanks.