Dear Susan,
It’s funny how meeting someone on a train can change your whole outlook on life. There was a time when I didn’t know you, and then there was a time I did. It happened that fast. I feel the same way about the other friends I’ve made here. I’ve had some that have been with me since the last time around, Alexandria from 2001-2002, but not so many I don’t have room for more. I’ve met homeless people, people who work with homeless people, and heads of national organizations. My life experiences have run the gamut, and perhaps it is what I needed to open my mind to what the universe has in store for me… whatever that might be. Right now, I know that I need to focus on myself, because I cannot pour from an empty cup. After that, who knows? I just want to make sure that I have something to offer instead of giving away everything I have and feeling that there’s nothing left for me.
I am so guilty of that in the past. I would give away everything emotionally that I had inside, and then use fight-or-flight to try and get some of it back… mostly flight. I’m generally a lovah not a fightah, but I wouldn’t have said that about myself last year. I fought needlessly as I went out of my right mind and didn’t know how to handle it, and now I am picking up the pieces. There are people I desperately miss that I know will never speak to me again… I don’t even have to ask. But it doesn’t stop the hurt, mostly because it came at my own hand and not someone else’s. But, as an old soldier once told me, I can only tell you that, from my own journey, self awareness is extremely costly – and it is worth every bit of effort and expense you can pour in to it. So I’m taking her at her word.
Self-reliance is a gift, hard, hard won…. and even then, it’s not like I have some sort of special life-hacking ability. I stumble. I forget to take care of things that I should and over-worry about others. But the main thing is that I keep trying to get it right. I keep trying to prove myself to myself, when in the past, I had to prove myself to everyone else.
The best part is that I have a written record of how far I’ve come, and how far there is still to go. I was just going to write to you, and then I realized that this letter was bigger than just the two of us.
Love,
Leslie
Stories That Are All True 