Subject: A Very Delicate Motion for Boundaries and Boundaries Only
Dear Sister,
If you were not family, I would already have filed the police report and commenced a civil action, so let us dispense with the melodrama and acknowledge the obvious: I am far from under any delusions. I spent a prodigious year documenting a criminal stalker and an additional six months juggling, yes juggling, what essentially became a second job above and beyond being a single mother — assisting the FBI and the U.S. Attorney to gather and organize evidence, and to build the federal case against him. I am well versed in the legal standards for stalking, harassment, coercion, and threats, and I recognize with growing unease how eerily similar your M.O. and mentality are to those I have faced within our own estranged family unit.
And so, let us be perfectly clear about your incessant violations of my privacy, boundaries, and property. You canvass neighbors to locate my address, triangulate my whereabouts, arrive unannounced, circle my property, rattle my front door, and then unleash a volley of insults about my “tiny” home and garden — which, in truth, is an expansive yard and lawn with tree groves, a three-bedroom house, a large deck, ocean views, and a bathroom with a proper bathtub. I cannot fathom, nor will I permit myself to imagine, seeing my life and dwelling through your eyes, for I know I am still cast as the family scapegoat in some warped family narrative.
You insist that my family loves me and understands why I have cut contact, yet your actions betray a different motive altogether — you seem hellbent on throwing in a monkey wrench when peace is what I seek. The police are fully apprised of my boundaries and informed that I have had no contact with family for a decade; any further attempts to file false welfare checks to coerce contact will be treated as a pattern of conduct, not a sympathetic gesture.
Your slander, false narratives, and caricatures of my life, home, and parenting are unacceptable. Consider this a formal, whimsical, but earnest notice that I will continue to protect my space with all lawful means, and I will not be drawn into your theater of deception. If you want a dialogue, let it be a dialogue of respect and boundaries, not a performance of surveillance and manipulation.
With measured resolve,
Your enlightened sister