And all of my professors in grad school.

I have maintained very very limited contact with her at my grandmas request. Basically a text for Christmas and her birthday and no acknowledgement of anything she sends me. Luckily we are geographically very distant, so it’s not like either of us is going to just “pop over” for a visit.

I did tell her I appreciated the recent apology. I thought it was a nearly miraculously improvement. It would astound me if she could come up with something concrete to apologize for.

At this point though, we are strangers. I’m not really interested in the time or effort it would require to get reacquainted. I’ll be cordial and polite over text but I’m not taking calls anytime and like I said there’s no way we’re visiting (and I find it super unlikely we’ll find ourselves at the same event)

She delayed an apology too long.

My mother was emotionally and physically abusive to me growing up. I started putting boundaries in place once I had moved far far away and that was not going well. We got into a fight during a phone call and she hung up on me.

I decided actually I was happier not talking, but I was open to it if she was willing to apologize.

It took her 4 years to try out “I’m sorry you’re so angry.”

Luckily in the intervening time I had some therapy and done a lot of self help and advice column reading and recognized that not-pology for what it was.

More recently (only 12 years after that first attempt [holy shit that long]) she finally apologized for “what I did to hurt you”.

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