Justin:
I wanted to write, and I've been putting it off because it never
seemed like the right time to pull my thoughts together. I started a new
journaling course called Staying Started, and I meant to write this
last night, but then I got sucked into a whirlpool of distraction, and
since I didn't have a plan, what I wrote wasn't what I wanted to tell
you. I can't remember the day we met, I doubt you'd remember it either,
we had a common interest, and I didn't picture me becoming such a fan of
yours, or realizing what an impact you had on my life until I read your
email. I read what you said several times. I still have it marked as
unread in my inbox so I can go back and remember what you wrote. I
shared the idea with others, a friend of mine down in Arizona is
excited, she's going through a difficult time with her mother so she and
I have shared what caring for a parent that we don't live with is like.
It's a stress reliever for both of us, and I hope we're able to stay in
touch because she's such a wonderfully grounded concrete person.
Another friend of mine who lives in Canada, I really must get there
as I have so many friends I'd like to see, but his roommate moved out,
and I said he could call, but I didn't think he would, and sure enough
there was an email from him about the move, and he said he was going to
bed early, and I'm really worried about him for many reasons. He's lost
weight, has no appetite, he has financial problems, very serious ones,
and a crippling inability to do a lot of the things that he knows that
he should be doing. And it's so easy for me to sit here listening to my
Zen Garden relaxation music and forget that earlier I was crying while
speaking to a British friend of mine that I just love. His sister has
struggled with OCD in the past. She was treated at a place when she was
sixteen, and I forget what words he used, but it was a nicer way of
phrasing it than the term I would have used to describe where she stayed.
He was so nice to me this evening. In the past, I wouldn't have
realized how much kindness matters, and I pictured the characters that I
created as being wealthy, beautiful, noble, really the kinds and types
of people I wanted to be myself, and I don't think there's anything
wrong with this. I don't believe that any writing is wrong unless it's
an attempt to make another person feel bad about themselves or what they
believe which is why I have so much trouble with advertising and
marketing because the lie is that your hair is not lustrous because you
don't use a certain shampoo, your smile is not alluring enough without
a layer of deceitful shimmer, and you can only figure out what he's
thinking about when you're intimate after you purchase the glossy pages
of Cosmopolitan. Years ago I read a definition of it, and it seemed
terribly important that I know things, facts and how to do things, and I
was insecure so I bluffed, but I didn't fool others, I only fooled
myself.
Now you and I know that I still do that from time to time, but my
friend from California talked to me about joining his crew of Long
Tossers the other night, and I told him that I would, but I wasn't a
long tosser. He laughed and said that I was funny and very real, and
maybe a few other things that I can't remember right now, and that
scares me too because I wonder about losing my ability to remember
things as I age, and then I wonder if it's a real aging problem, or
something more serious like a psychiatric issue, and I know I have
problems there, I like to think of them as my pets that I've been
neglecting and they've gotten more and more unruly as I've neglected
them. I'm a terrible pet owner at times, obsessing over them, sacrificing
for them when I should be taking better care of myself, and I had a
chance to listen to my friend whose team won the 18U Baseball
Chamionship over in Taiwan, and he talked about the importance of
routine which made me realize that I don't have one. So I need to get
one.
I'm tremendously grateful to you, and for you. For the encouragement
you continually provide even though I know that you have days where you
don't feel like doing things too. I feel as if you're honest, and so are
my friends, and I value honesty as I value kindness, and one of the
cool things I did was scrap a scene that I had thought wasn't too bad,
and rewrote to make the main character really pathetic. As difficult as
that was, I'm so glad I did it. What it does apart from making the story
more realistic, because not everyone we know is a Major League Baseball
player who makes a miraculous recovery afer a TBI, was force me to work through his problems which made my own
seem not quite so bad. It also showed me that I could get him, and
myself through a situation that was embarrassing, emotion based instead
of rational, and I have a lot of trouble with my emotions coming out at
the wrong time, so I think that him being like that will help me in real
life, and if not, so what?
And that's really why I wanted to write to you tonight because I Can
Not Tell You how your philosophy has helped me through things that I've
dealt with. Not the big things like packing to move out, or filing for
divorce although your strategy will come in handy then, I'm talking
about the little things that break my day. The sickness, the unwellness,
the not wanting to get out of bedness I go through whenever I wake up.
The fact that I don't want to admit that I sleep with a pile of scarves
wrapped around my head regardless of what time of day it is when I go to
bed, or the fact that my kids ate beans and rice and we drank tea and
ate grapefruit for breakfast, and I don't have a plan, and I didn't go
to the grocery store when I should have because I thought I had plenty
of time only then my sister called, and I was going to go over, and then
the calendar scared me by reminding me that I had been invited to an
event at church which was the same time as my conference call, and I sat
on the couch with the girls watching Grease because Jane was sick.
She was so sick. Her head was warm and pale as she lay beneath her
blanket. She told me that everything was moving too fast, people, and
time were just flying by, and then she mentioned that she was hearing
voices in her head, and that scared me too. And I wonder if her health
is being destroyed because of things I've done, or not done, and I got
her some water, and some rice, and she sat up, and I was so relieved to
hear that the voices had told her to sit up and lie down, and nothing
more. She's creative and artistic, and fragile and kind, so kind, and
deep, and thoughtful, and I am blessed, and calm, and healed, and
exalted, but I can't say these things to her so I put my hand on the
warmth she radiates, and run the shower while she brushes her teeth. And
I see the shadowed eyes, and the impossibly long lashes, the fine
strands of gossamer hair, and the length of legs, and the fineness of
her bones, and the coarse contrast of the movie that I chose because I
felt like it was a classic, and I had never seen it through its
entirety.
Possibly you will worry when you read this, but I'd like to encourage
you not to as these are the things I think often, but never get out so
they stay trapped inside, and erode my self esteem and willpower, and
now like birds, they can take flight away from me leaving me freer,
emptier, purer, cleansed of toxicity, and I couldn't say these things if
we were together, but writing them now is not difficult, and the things
I've worried about in the past are never the real things that I need to
be worrying about so what's the point in worrying? There is none so I
won't worry. I will act, because that's been effective in the past, and I
can go to the store to buy wholesome nourishing foods, and I can
contemplate the heavy heat of Florida in the summer, and envision the
dog days of July here in Wisconsin, and perhaps some day I'll own the
red mosiac table with the wrought iron chairs that I saw at the garden
center, but today, I can proudly proclaim that I left there with nothing
more than ideas so I am richer for not having consumed, and that's what
I wanted to share with you.
Take care, and know that I love you.
J