Always measuring my decisions and my self worth by some invisible moral ruler and never quite making the grade.
I found a diary I had when I was 13 years old, I read it cover to cover and it broke my heart. I didn't realise what an unhappy teenager I was until I saw it in black and white; what scared me, was that some of the things I wrote, I could have written yesterday.
I don't think I knew what depression was until a doctor sat me down at University and told me, if I had understood back then, I would have seen that I needed some serious intervention very early on.
I found my old phone, with photos snapped rapidly in a doctors waiting room, I got to hold my entire life's medical records for 15 minutes to approve them to be sent to court, with bundles of papers I had never seen before.
When I was adopted, I thought I would live happily ever after and become part of family where every day was love and appreciation, forever a million miles away from the hideousness that came before.
The sense of loss I felt when I was a teenager was some sort of recognition that I was loosing my family even then. No bond. No salvation. I was always striving to save something that in reality didn't exist.
So I emailed my father my thoughts, as I tend to do, never to receive a reply, but I somehow type and hope regardless.
I wake up with Sarah every morning and know that my heart lies in this house, in this love.
That as time goes by and I sort my shit out, we can build a life together.
Maybe it's time to let go of something I can't bring back to life
"I turn 30 this year.
30.
I've managed to navigate through the financial and emotional saga's of court cases, criminality, addiction and finally, business, and somehow find a way through to the other side.
None of it has been easy.
Most people who go through trials and tribulations do so with the support of their family. I have been blessed to have Sarah's family in my life, and should I have met her sooner, I am sure I could have avoided some of the hideous choices I made.
I seem to write you this sort of email once a year, and it always fails to yield a response; which are you can imagine, from your daughters point of view, grows tiresome.
I have tried to look at all this from your point of view, but am very aware, my perspective will always be tailored to my own hurt, as your must be too.
Sarah's mum often says to me, that there is nothing Sarah could do that would make her stop loving her, that would cause her to break her bond with her daughter, apparently the same applies to me now, and believe me that woman knows the good, the bad and the ugly and still finds the time to make me part of her family.
This Christmas Sarah's family came to us. To a house we have lived in for over 2 years now, a home we have built together. You have never seen it. Despite copious invitations. It's always too far?
They live in Orrell and managed to make the round trip on Christmas Day to be with us.
Even Jay and his lovely lady have been. Why haven't you?
Our relationship is conditional, and I understand that we all live busy lives, but that seems to mean that my only options for seeing you are short windows of opportunity on your terms, and they come and go so quickly that I often miss the chance. Which is of course bizarre, given how much time you spend in Manchester with mummy and Jay.
Sarah's mums secret weapon is quite literally her OAP travel card - you should try it sometime! We are only a metrolink ride away!
I'm aware the negative aspects of my life seep into yours when you want them the least, like lunatic ex employees emailing you, or debts I haven't paid from times gone by, that somehow encroach on your door. For that I apologise, that somehow my shit finds its way back to you - the reason for that is what most people know, and have known for a long time, that if you want to hit me where it hurts, you go for the jugular, you.
I don't want another year of sporadic text messages, that lack substance. When you text me the day after my birthday because you forgot what date it was. You shouldn't forget? It should be engraved on your heart as yours in mine.
Do you not wake in the morning and catch your breath for the loss of me? Your daughter? I was your little girl once in a ridiculous cherry dress, with blonde hair and green eyes and a suitcase of two of baggage!
I lie awake, at night, next to Sarah, and I feel blessed, that I have this life, this love, this security. With the cat that looks like Cosmoe at the end of the bed, sleeping.
I worry. I think of you and Mummy, getting older, and it fills me with fear.
I've written this sentence to you before, but it never changes. I'm scared. I turn 30 in a few months, and you turn 63. We're getting older.
What if I loose you and nothing changed?
That you grow grey and into your grandad ears, become a grandfather, but not to my children. What a sad fate.
I google you both sometimes to see you. Your always in Lancashire life at something or other. Or mummys laytons photo, that has changed 3 times over the past 6 years, its the only way I get to see what she looks like.
I found a little diary amongst the things you gave me at my old flat. It's so sad. 13 years old and I write in the section that reads
My biggest fears are..... "my biggest fear is loosing someone I love, someone I care about,"
It's like I predicted the future.
Another reads
The people who are most important in my life....
"my mother, we don't get on very well, god I wish we would, but well, we're trying,"
"my father, I just wish he would give me a chance to prove that I can do something with my life,"
"my brother, I love him more than anyone or anything in the world,"
Do you see?
I have yearned for you, for such a long time. When does it stop?
I felt like this when I was 13, and you were right there, every morning, every night, and I still didn't feel like I had you.
It's 2017, you're nowhere to be seen, and it feels exactly the same.
How did that happen?
What are we?
Our relationship is a huge factor of who I am, why I am the way I am, and I don't know if I can hold on much longer, to something that I don't know even exists, or could exist.
If it was so impossible all those years ago, before I had fucked up my life in every way possible, screaming for you to keep saving me, then it really is impossible now.
I want a dad.
I want my dad.
I want to be Daisy-May.
I want to a Barker.
Not the bloody Barker Baker.
Not this facade of overwhelming rehabilitation and success because I'm still doing it for the wrong reasons - to show you I can do something.
I don't have to.
I did do something.
I created something I'm proud of, that brought change to other peoples lives, I lived selflessly for a short time and tried to build my life around it - which when
you are an inherently selfish un-empathetic person is pretty hard to do.
I went on national television twice - for one reason and one reason only - in the hope you would see it, and you would feel proud.
Both of you.
There is still a very sad little girl, inside a struggling nearly 30 year old, wanting a family.
So I either rebuild ours.
Or I start my own.
But I can't a foot in both anymore.
I need your commitment, to be more, to be phone calls, not just texts. To be dinner, not just 10 minute coffee. To care. To want to know me. To want to know Sarah. My life, our life. Like you know Jay's.
Because I do get older, and every day, it takes us further apart.
I miss you.
You're a hole in my heart I can't fill."
Surprising I'm sure to know, no reply.
