A Letter From Self

And so this one starts here. And Like I’ve said before, where else does anything start?
Everything starts from the beginning.
Or like any other journal or any other page, this one marks the first page of a new start with hopes to open a new pathway to a new life.

A new life.
What a concept . . .

I remember being a little boy and hearing my Grandmother sing me a song about writing a letter.
I know the song is famous. I know the song was used in a musical called , “Ain’s Misbehavin’”
I remember the words, “I’m gonna sit right down and write myself a letter. And make believe it came from you.”

Even now, my eyes start to tear because I remember the sound of my grandmother’s voice.
I remember how she held me as she sang.
I remember sitting on her lap. I remember the feel of her hands and how soft they were. I remember the overwhelming sense of joy and safety, just because my Grandmother was there to wipe the hair from my eyes and sing to me.
No Grandma was like my Grandma.
I know this.

At the same time, I was never much for writing letters.
I hardly wrote to her at all, which was a topic at the dinner table. But such are the problems of youth.
My Grandmother died around the summertime when I was 12.

I never wrote letters.
Then again, I never wrote much to anyone, and as for my poems or my private thoughts, I never shared them with anyone because I was too afraid that someone would tell me that I was stupid or that I was bad or just uninteresting.
Plus, who would care?
Who would want a letter from me?
Who would read something I wrote and be moved or understand?

I remember the end of the summer, 1989.
I had found myself in a lot of trouble.
I was not well, by any means.
I was sick for countless reasons too, but moreover, I was sick from a social virus that killed like social cancer, spreading and contagious, like a pandemic above all pandemics.
In fact, the disease concept and the models and the mental health struggles are still killing people in record numbers. And the numbers of these deaths are going up.
Not down.
But that’s a letter for a different time.

I am not healed or cured or cleansed.
No, I suppose much of my active problems are in somewhat of a remission. Thus, I understand that self-care and maintenance is important. Otherwise, the infection can resume and my old behaviors can become revisited and new ones again.

I was told to write a goodbye letter to all of the things I wanted to get rid of.
I was told to write a goodbye letter to my addictions. I was told to say goodbye to my problems. I was told to write a goodbye letter to the pain, or the intrusions, the guilt, the shame, and the abuse, the regrets of my past and to anyone or anything that I wanted to ger away from.

I struggled to do this.
Yet, I did this nonetheless.

Since then, I have written countless goodbye letters. I have written letters that were addressed to no one and yet, they were addressed to me or to someone in my life.
Either way, the design for closure and rebuilding began with that letter.
Goodbye . . .

I will share new letters with you in this journal.
Some of the letters will be about old things and some will be about new things.
Some will be about wholesome things and some of the letters will be about devious things.
Some of the letters will remain anonymous. Some will be an outpour of emotion.
And many of the letters in this journal will consist of the most asked and shortest question of all. Why?

I do not know if you know or realize how valuable you are to me.
You have become my sounding board and my ear of hope and support in my darkness and silence.
I have celebrated with you.
I have wept with you.
I have bled with you, hated with you, and in many ways, I have died with you.

Why?
This is the biggest shortest question of all.
Why are we the way we are?
The truth is I don’t know.
I don’t know why we reconnected after all these years. I don’t know why some things work out, and sometimes, people come and people go.

I don’t know why we overlap the way we do.
But I do know this –
I have never seen anyone as beautiful and as loving as you.

And with all of my heart –
I love you.
Thank you for always being here to hear me, even if what I say makes no sense or contradicts itself; still, you’ve been here to hear me out.
Good or bad, like it or not.
It’s true.

I’m going to send a letter a day for a while.
And I’m going to share this with you.

Grandma used to sing to me.
Mom used to make my favorite meals to make me feel better.
The Old Man took me fishing to show me that he knows, he gets it, and that while he understood that we didn’t understand each other, at least we had something that brought us together. 

And you?
Well, I’m sure that you know what you do for me.
If not, then maybe a day will come when you sit across from me .
Maybe you’ll look in my eyes.
And maybe we might not have all the answers to the question “Why?”
But from my heart to the Heavens above; I swear with all I have that you will know exactly why I love you

Always